


Gamebox

by rudyroos



Category: HLVRAI - Fandom, Half Life VR But The AI Is Self-Aware
Genre: Abandonment, Action, Adventure, All Hell Breaks Loose, Amputation, Angst, Anime Boy That Wants To Kill You, Autistic Benrey (Half-Life), Body Horror, Boss Fights, Chaotic Evil, Character Arc, Character Development, Chronic Pain, Comedy, Denial of Feelings, Drowning, Emotional, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Roller Coaster, Existential Crisis, Gaymer Moments, Gen, Glitches, Gore, HLVRAI Genrehopper AU, Half-Life VR But the AI is Self-Aware, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Loneliness, Loss of Identity, M/M, Mostly Cartoony, Mutual Pining, Near-Death Experience, Panic Attacks, Pining, Psychic damage, Reasons Not To Play God, Romance, Safe For Work, Self-Reflection, Silly and serious, Slow Burn, Story Driven, Trypophobia, Video & Computer Games, What Have I Done, cosmic horror, gay people real, long fic, loss of self, unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 35,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25016149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudyroos/pseuds/rudyroos
Summary: Gordon Freeman gets home from a long, hard day of work, and nothing sounds better to him than a good ol’ round of Half Life. Unbeknownst to him, though, something is very, very wrong with this particular copy of the game, and something inside him swears that the game’s new cast of AI was most definitely not in the game before...* Also go check out my tumblr, I post about this fic pretty regularly!!!  My url is officialtommycoolatta !(This fic is still a WIP!)
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman, Bubby & Dr. Coomer (Half-Life)
Comments: 54
Kudos: 202





	1. Chapter 1

  
The daily 9-to-5 hadn't been any kinder to Gordon.

For the most part, it was more of the same. The usual 8-hour workday consisting of paperwork, phone calls, and the like. Although nothing too significant happened, not at all whatsoever, by the time Gordon had made the mundane commute back to his one-story home in the suburbs and picked Joshua up from the babysitter, he felt like he was on his last legs.

Nothing a few rounds of video games couldn’t fix, right?

Gordon gingerly picked up the headset from his desk and slid it onto his face, playing around with the controllers in his hands before booting up good ol’ Half Life.

The title screen proudly displayed itself to him, though it caught his eye how slowly the fade from black to grey was. _Much_ slower than usual. _Probably nothing,_ he reassured himself. Gordon thwomped back into his chair, still trying to forget the cardboard taste that horrendous five-dollar microwave dinner he’d subjected himself to an hour earlier left in his mouth.

He raised an eyebrow as he tried to select the “New Game” option.

The thing wouldn’t work.

“What?” He wondered aloud.

He persisted in his attempts to get the game to work, but it seemed that no matter how many times he smashed the start button, it wouldn’t budge. It didn’t take long for him to realize that the game itself was frozen.

_Damn it._

Just as he was about to call for help from none other than the trusty Task Manager application, an error message popped up.

In place of the usual pesky “The program is not responding” prompt lay a text box full of nonsense gibberish. It got longer and longer by the second. Longer. Longer _still_. None of it made any sense.

“Jesus, what the f-“

Frustrated, Gordon shot the headset back onto the desk and wheeled backwards in his seat, squinting at the ceiling. 

Great. This is _just_ what he needed.

As he looked upwards, running his hands through his hair, panic ran through his veins.

If the worst was true - the worst, of course, being that a virus had managed to wedge its slimy way through the thick barrier the countless antiviruses he installed put up - then Gordon knew it was all over. He knew that he couldn’t afford to buy a new PC, not after using his paycheck to splurge on that new VR headset that currently lay abandoned on the desk. Calling the repairman up wasn’t completely out of the question, he reasoned with himself. But, then again, calling up the repairman could lead to the repairman discovering that his precious device was bricked, and then _that_ would result in him being without a computer for god knows how long while the guy fixed it. He couldn’t remember the last time he backed up any of the files on there. A year, max? Maybe? The exact date was scant. This was particularly troubling as his most recent files were mainly work-related. Not only that, these files were _vital_ to the company. If those ended up becoming lost to the void, then Gordon’s fear of losing his job could swiftly become a reality.

He took a long sip from his cup of joe, mulling over the whole ordeal.

There was a side of him that feared touching his computer as if pressing a mere key could singlehandedly end up in his monitor bursting into flames. Then again, he could try to get to the bottom of this, trial-and-error style, and if that worked, well, the worst case scenario could be prevented. It was worth a shot. 

Lowering the mug, he eyed down the headset before him. He carefully tiptoed near his desk, allowing the chair to tag along with the tap of his feet. As he kicked his feet into the concave area below the counter, he shimmied around in his seat, placing the cup to his right. His fingers found themselves intertwined within each other as he flexed them inwards, producing a slight _crak._

Gordon inhaled, then exhaled, preparing himself for the dive back.

“Alright, Gordon. Y-you can do this.” He cheered himself on.

Before he knew it, he was back on his feet, the headset was back on his head, and the controllers were once again comfortably in his grasp.

When the information being displayed on the screen squeezed its way through Gordon’s corneas and wormed its way into his brain, his stance widened.

To his surprise, the game was - seemingly - back to normal.

The glitched error window was nowhere in sight, gone, too, were the colored bars littering the screen.

He was as shocked as he was relieved.

Looking back at his internal overreaction, he had no choice but to laugh at how naive he’d been.

Of course there was no reason to freak out.  
  
It was an old game, he told himself.

_Why wouldn’t it have a few snags here and there?_


	2. Chapter 2

Gordon felt the relief trickle over as the start button  _ finally  _ did what it was intended to.

The game  _ looked _ to be normal. There were no major hardware consequences to idly wandering about the tutorial space, nor did any of his movements birth a rage-inducing sea of lag or frame rate drops. Nothing seemed wrong with it - nothing that was immediately noticeable, at least.

Just when Gordon was getting the hang of the controls, he stepped foot into one of Black Mesa’s signature blue and lime green hallways. It was not unlike the many others he’d traversed beforehand, but...for some reason, the wary player got a feeling of uneasiness about the liminal location, even if it had just been one step.

Not exactly  _ why  _ he got such a nagging feeling, his eyes swung around the room, going from floor to wall to wall to ceiling to wall and then bounding back again to the floor. No matter how hard he surveyed the corridor, he couldn’t for the life of him find a source of the growing uneasiness of it all.

Whatever. It was probably nothing.

He pushed the feeling aside like a child rejecting a freshly-cooked plate of broccoli. Still equipped with that same sense of suspicion, he rushed through - albeit cautiously so - the passageway, only to find himself running for what felt like miles.

Then, a noise.

The riff of an electric guitar.

Then, drums.

Confused by the out-of-place dissonance provided by what seemed to be a teenage garage band practice session going on a few rooms over, Gordon stopped dead in his tracks, eyes as wide as the headlights of a car on a night drive home.

What the  _ fuck? _

The more Gordon drew near the epicenter of the music, the more vocal he became.

“Hey!” The ponytail-sporting man exclaimed. “Hey! The hell’s going on in there?!”

At long last, Gordon came across a door. A welcome refuge from the long stretch of boring, washed-out and sterile blues and diseased greens the hallway had subjected him to.

When Gordon swung the thing open, he had to take a step back.

In front of him was a fairly sizable lobby, still coated in the same god-awful colors the previous halls he had ushered himself through displayed.

The paint job of the room wasn’t the only thing that induced a headache in Gordon. In fact, the unenthusiastic color scheme was  _ far _ from the most concerning thing in that foyer.

Just a few dozen feet in front of him, a bottomless pit resided.

The thing just went  _ straight down,  _ and it showed no signs of stopping. It defied all logic.

Gordon didn’t notice the one lone guard sitting beside the gaping hole. He didn’t notice how sparks of glitches would sparsely float up from the edges of that damned cavity. He didn’t have time to notice  _ anything. _

“W-w-w-“ Gordon sputtered out, barely finding it in him to shape cohesive sentences. 

“ **What the** **_goddamn_ ** **is this?!** ”

Gordon’s eyes met the back of the head of the only other being inhabiting the hellish area.

“H-hey?  _ Dude? _ W-What’s going on here?” he said to the guard, with each word that flung out of his mouth feeling like globules of slime shooting out from a blender.

The guard’s head perked up.

“ _ Huh. _ ”

Gordon gestured towards the fissure. “Why? I-In the  _ hell _ ? Is there a giant hole in the ground? Just...just  _ right _ there? Why is that?”.

“Oh,” the guard murmured, “you mean  _ this?” _

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That. What  _ is _ that thing? Do you  _ know _ ?”

Moments passed by without a response from the stranger. Then, a single shrug.

“Beats me.”

Unable to believe what he was seeing, Gordon clenched at his temple, turning away from the scene. “Then why are you near it, then? What, you got a  _ death wish or something _ ?” He shouted.

“Bro, could you, like, shut up for a second? I’m trying to scope out the scene.”

“For  _ what _ ?”

The security guard peered over his shoulder.

“The bits.”

The second Gordon caught a glimpse of the mysterious man’s face, he gasped with all the air his lungs could muster.

“W- YOUR  **_SKULL’S_ ** JUST HANGING OUT!!!” He exclaimed, diving down and grabbing the skeletal half of the guards face, janking it around to ensure he wasn’t hallucinating.

This was met with a shove to the ground.

“Jeez, talk about taking a chill pill.” The bony stranger now looming over Gordon positioned his hands on his hips. “You don’t just go up to people and run your grease mittens all over their mug outside of the workplace, do you? Didn’t your mommy ever teach you to, uh. K-Keep…..to keep your hands off the monitor at the grocery store?  _ Yeah. That works. _ ”

Gordon tensed up. “Are you kidding me?! That’s your  _ cranium _ halfway across the home stretch and you’re gonna get mad at  _ me _ for being concerned about your crazy ass?! You need, like,  _ medical attention  _ or some shit!”

“Wow.” The guard scoffed, pretzeling his arms together. “ _ No need to make it personal _ .”

“This is  _ personal _ now?!” 

“Hey, don’t get mad at  _ me _ , bro!  _ I’m _ not the one that made this a personal attack. If I  _ want _ my brain cage to be shown off because it looks rad as hell, then I should be allowed to do that.”

“That’s not just a  _ personal choice _ , dude! It’s -“

“Look. I really don’t have the time to argue with some random box-of-rocks beefcake over my own face. I don’t think I have the energy to, either. So, I’m gonna cut to the chase.”

The guard swung a haggard hand in the direction of the endless pit.

“You crossing or nah?”

Gordon stiffly got back up to his knees. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

The smug sentry shot him a smirk. An almost knowing one. “Cool. You’re gonna need your passport for that, though.”

This was mirrored by a raised eyebrow. “My - my  _ passport?” _

“Did I stutter?”

Gordon looked to his side uncomfortably. He tried to rattle his brain for a time in the tutorial where a passport was brought up. To his memory, no such thing was mentioned, nor was it implied to be necessary to progress in the game.

“Why do I - Why do I  _ need _ a passport?” Questioned Gordon, finding it in him to get up on his own two feet again. “Can’t you just, you know, take me across?”

The watchman shifted his position, placing both hands firmly in his pockets. “So what you’re telling me is: you  _ don’t _ have it.”

“...no. I don’t.”

The stranger bit his lip. “Welp, rules are rules. No passport, no crossing. Sorry bro.”

Before Gordon could extend a hand towards him and come up with a million excuses, he found himself grasping at nothing but air and tiny cube-shaped particles. Befuddled, he looked up towards the other side of the hole, only to see the new bane of his existence walking around the corner.

“ **WAIT!** ” He bellowed, “You can’t just leave me here!”

The man’s voice echoed from further down the next corridor. “What’d I say?  _ No passport means no crossing!  _ That’s final!”

Defeat was painted all over Gordon’s face. He didn’t even seem to notice as his body shifted into the fetal position almost automatically.

“ _ I want this to be normal, _ ” he blubbered as he rocked himself back and forth, “ _ please let this be normal. I just want this to be normal. Just normal. It’s all I ask. _ ”


	3. Chapter 3

Among all the repetition of that one phrase, Gordon suddenly felt a tugging sensation stemming from around his foot. Moving now so out of obligation rather out of curiosity, he heaved his body to the side.

In front of his foot stood a very,  _ very _ small man. For all Gordon knew, he couldn’t have been more than 5 inches tall. While, yes, Half-Life wasn’t exactly the  _ most _ graphically advanced game on the market, Gordon could count the amount of polygons on this guy’s model on one hand. There wasn’t a single desaturated color on him, so Gordon squinted at him so that he wouldn’t render his eyesight obsolete.

“Hello, Joshua!” 

The little man waved enthusiastically at Gordon, his cheerful, sunshiny voice becoming music to Gordon’s ears after having to endure whatever the hell was up with that sassy security guard.

“H-hi.” Gordon returned the favor with a faltering wave back and a shy smile. It didn’t even dawn on Gordon that he got his name wrong. “What’s  _ your _ name, lil’ fella..?”

The low-poly cartoon strutted his way across to Gordon’s face, speaking rhythmically as he stepped along. “My name is Dr. Coomer, PhD in arithmetic, english studies, physical education, social studies, health, life skills, biology, chemistry, psychics, music skills, foreign language, and - of course -  _ teaching _ ! I am here to be your educational guide across your magical learning journey!”

This elicited a nod from Gordon, who only understood about half of what he said. 

“Yeah..? You sure sound talented - say, maybe you could put all that doctorate stuff to good use by helping me out here?”

“Ooh! Yes! I just  _ love _ to help! Tell me, Joshua, what is it you need my assistance on? Homework, perhaps? Would you like me to supply you with an informative study guide?”

“No, no - none of that’s necessary, really. What I need help with is, like, urgent. Is there a way you could help me get across that hole?”

“Hmm….” Dr. Coomer pondered, stepping near said trench. He took a gander at the edge, then rebounded back to face Gordon.

“Joshua, I personally think you will be delighted to hear my observations on this particular situation!”

“Oh, yeah?” Gordon chuckled. “What’s that?”

“I have successfully determined that this hole is, in fact, a hole!”

Gordon rolled his eyes.

“I have  _ also _ determined that by the power of geometry, we may be able to construct a bridge!”

“Really? How so?” Said Gordon, internally dreading the likely possibility that this thing was likely going to bring up something involving years of forgotten algebra lessons.

“You see, Joshua, in order to completely fill this treacherous gap, we’re going to need a cube - as a cube big enough to stretch the entire width, and length, of this crevasse will guarantee full safety when traveling across it, therefore, a cube is our best bet!”

Gordon was taken aback with just how much knowledge Dr. Coomer had crammed in him in spite of being the tiniest thing he’d ever seen. “ _ Woah _ . Yeah, okay. I see that. Uh, please tell me I don’t need to solve anything. We don’t have to do that, right?”

“Well, Joshua, typically I would encourage you to figure out the answers on your own, especially when given an extra hint-“

“ _ Please?“ _

Coomer poised a floating glove on his chin. “- ….Hm. I suppose since you asked so kindly…..a little  _ extra _ help wouldn’t hurt.”

Gordon wiped his forehead as he watched on as the eccentric teacher ambled back towards the hole. “Phew. T-Thanks. To be completely, uh, real with you, I’m not really in the right place, mentally, to be doing any serious thinking, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh, no worries, Joshua! This won’t take long!”

The irritated player stepped back as Coomer strenuously began pulling something out of his chest, like he was removing a weapon from an entry wound. His eyes got wider as, somehow, the little AI pulled out a gigantic cube, so big that it could’ve blocked out the sun. With the strength of a thousand armies, he slammed it down in the hole with an unfathomable amount of force. Then, like it was nothing, Coomer casually walked in the middle of the platform. He turned around to face his new friend.

“See, Joshua?” He cooed. “That wasn’t so hard!”

A smile crept across Gordon’s face as he started to follow along.

“Y-yea. Not hard at  _ all _ .”


	4. Chapter 4

Gordon shuttered as he felt Coomer crawl all over his shoulders.

He’d found himself in a familiar predicament; same blue walls, same tacky flooring, same buzz of overhead lights. Same type of hallway.

As the two trekked their way down the corridor, Coomer repeatedly shot his carrier multiple confused, befuddled, and puzzled looks, one after the other. None of them had been too talkative throughout the venture thus far, but Coomer was determined to get something out of him.

Skittering up to the top of his head, Coomer made himself at home in Gordon’s hair.

“By Jove, Joshua,” the doc began, “you’ve really grown up fast, haven't you?”

Gordon’s pace slowed. He was as confused, if not  _ more, _ as to the current scenario than his tiny cohort must've been. He hadn’t thought of it before, but the further he went along, the stranger he found that this random NPC knew the name of his own  _ son _ . Then again, it could always be another Joshua, right? As his walking paced slowed to a crawl, his mind raced with things to say. Out of all the sentences, he settled on a simple:

“Yeah. Tell me about it.”

Paired with a dismissive chuckle, of course.

Coomer’s pie-slice eyes narrowed. To him, something felt  _ off _ about Joshua. Maybe it was just because he hadn’t seen the boy in so long, he thought.

“You know, it's incredibly rare for 6-year-olds to grow beards within the span of a year, Joshua! You must be a medical miracle!”

Gordon felt a chill go up his spine.

“ _ Riiiiiight. _ ”

“And, in addition, it’s also unlikely for a child to spike from 3 feet to 6 feet in the same remarkably short time frame! I’ve never seen anything quite like it!”

“Really?”

“Yes! Really, Joshua! ...T-that is, unless….” Towards the end, his happy-go-lucky tone almost seemed grim.

Gordon stopped, picking up on Coomer’s morose inflection. “What is it, lil’ guy?”

“Well, er, Joshua, I believe that if you’ve been aging this quickly, then....I really don’t want to scare you, but it could potentially be…..” He took pause. “How do I say this... _ fatal _ .”

“ _ What _ ?”

“I-I’m so sorry Joshua, I don’t want to scare you, I really don’t.”

Maybe getting a  _ little  _ too invested in the game, Gordon played along. “No, no. I’m not scared, Dr. Coomer. Go on. It’s better that I know.”

A sigh came from above as Coomer pulled out a notebook - scaled to fit his size, of course. “Alright. If you say so. From what I’ve observed of you and put in the database, your condition aligns to that of an illness called Progeria.Progeria is an extremely rare autosomal dominant genetic disorder in which symptoms resembling aspects of aging are manifested at a very early age.[6] Progeria is one of several progeroid syndromes.[7] Those born with progeria typically live to their mid-teens to early twenties.[8][9] It is a genetic-“

Coomer’s words bled together into a squishy, nonsensical mass the more Gordon made his way down the hallway. As he continued marching forwards, so too did Coomer’s monotone rantings and ravings about...what exactly again? The speed at which he was dishing out information made it almost impossible to keep up with even the basic gist of the topic at hand. Soon, the ramblings became mind-numbing. He knew he had to change the subject, for the sake of his own sanity.“Hey, uh, did you see that weird security guard back there earlier? What was up with him?”


	5. Chapter 5

Coomer circled back from the tangent instantaneously, like a robot being rebooted. “Guard? I didn’t see any guard, Joshua. Wasn’t it just you and me in that room?”

Gordon began to feel like his brain was morphing into a spiralling shape. How could Coomer not see whoever the hell that was? He stuck out like a sore thumb - what with his ghoulish appearance and all. 

“Didn’t you see that guy?” He explained. “You know, that one? The one with half-skin-face, half-skull-face? Like the Batman villain? What was his name, uh….”Double-face?” Yeah, him. He was right by that hole. Not the villain one, the guy that looked like him. All mope-y and stuff. Mean, too. Like -  _ really  _ mean. Just nasty. He could teleport? I guess? But for some bullshit reason he wouldn’t let me get through. You know that guy, right? Can’t really miss him.”

Coomer looked at Gordon like he had 5 heads, then clasped his hands together. “Aw, how sweet, Joshua! You already have your very own imaginary friend! Did you know that imaginary friends are extremely valuable to the early development of a child? It’s true! Would you like to hear some papers on it?”

Gordon slumped over dejectedly, placing a hand on the handle of a newly-discovered door.

“No, thank you, Dr. Coomer. I-I’m good.”

When Gordon flung that door open, he was filled with the strongest fight or flight response of his life.

“Hey.” Trailed a horrifically familiar voice.

It was that  _ fucking  _ guard.

_ Speaking of the devil,  _ Gordon thought to himself.

“Ugh! What is your  **_deal_ ** , man?!” He shrieked. “Can’t you just leave me alone?! I could’ve  **_died_ ** out there! Why are you here if you hate me so much?!”

A devilish grin grew across Gordon’s now arch-nemesis' face. “I dunno. You’re just fun to toy with, Feetman. Maybe you should stop bein’ such a fuckin’ idiot? Also, it’d help if you stopped talking shit. Just a word of advice.”

“Dr. Coomer, are you  _ hearing  _ this?”

Coomer spun around from his living mode of transportation’s shoulder.

“Joshua, all I hear is you yelling at the air! Are you sure you’re alright?”

In disbelief, Gordon’s head jolted back to the scene at hand. To his dismay, he was right; there was no one there. Just an empty room, and that was all.

“Wh-”

Gordon looked back and forth, forth and back. His entire body drooped down again.

“Ah, god- sorry about that...must be my mind getting to me.”

“Wait, Joshua! I think your imaginary friend has become  _ tangible _ ! That’s a new key word for you to learn, by the way!”

“Coomer, there’s nothing there,” he motioned towards the room, “remember? It’s just air, like you said.”

Then, a tap on the other shoulder caused Gordon to doubt himself. If that wasn’t enough, a clearing of a throat from a voice that was distinguishably  _ not _ from Gordon or Coomer finally made him turn on his feet.

“Hi.” The guard said, swiftly tucking something purple back into the side of his helmet.

Gordon sighed.

“ _ Dear god, what do you want now….. _ ?” He said, not at all making an attempt to hide the toxic levels of bitterness in his voice as he smeared his hand all over his face exhaustedly.

“Now, Joshua, that’s  _ no _ way to treat your imaginary friend! Please be kind with how you use your words, you could make him scared! You wouldn’t want your nice little imaginary friend here to be scared of  _ you _ , would you?”

“Yeah, pops.” The watchman agreed, giving an approving gaze to Gordon’s walking library. “Treat others the way you want to be treated for once. That’s what they teach you in  _ kindergarten _ .”

The feeling that Gordon was losing his mind only grew the more seconds the conversation tallied up.

“Coomer, I thought I told you that this guy’s an asshole! He left me for dead, and the only reason I didn’t starve out there is because you came along! And now you’re on  **_his_ ** side?!”

“To be fair, Joshua, you have to understand a simple fact about life: people can, and will, undergo many, many changes throughout their development! And to me, your imaginary friend has seemed to change for the better! Just look at him!”

Smash cut to the pain in the neck guard sitting on the floor, wildly biting his own shoes like a lion trying to devour its prey.

“Listen. We don’t even know this punk’s name.” He whispered over to the tiny man standing on his shoulder patiently.

The man looked up.

“Benrey. The name’s Benrey.”

“Benrey…..Benrey. Benrey?  _ Benrey _ !” The words emerged from Coomer’s mouth as if they were pieces of popcorn in a movie theater. “What a fun little name for such a fun little character, don’t you agree, Joshua?”

“Yeppp.  _ Really _ fun.  _ Benrey _ .” He sneered, making sure to spit out the last word with a seething type of hatred.

Benrey pursed his mouth against his cheek, idly bumping his knees against each other. “Hey, so….. I’m  _ bored _ .” He said monotonously, trailing out each word.

Gordon locked eyes with him blankly. “...Good for you.” He abruptly turned back to face the room. “Look. I got places to be so.....h-heh…. I think I’ll get going now.”

Without hesitation, Gordon went on his way, feeling Coomer rustle around in his hair. Nearing the end of the room, he briefly glanced back at the door frame.

The guard sat there, sitting unnaturally, eyeing down Gordon with an exaggeratedly sad expression that was decidedly not genuine whatsoever.

After a few moments of awkward one-on-one direct eye contact, Gordon exhaled and continued trotting forward. Still feeling a stare creep across his back, he looked back again.

Yep. Benrey was still there, and still looking at him.  _ Probably didn’t even blink _ , Gordon thought.

Definitely not wanting this twerp to follow him again, his best bet was to start walking backwards. He stuck out two fingers towards his own eyes and spun his wrist towards Benrey, giving him the “I’m watching you” gesture. His brow furrowed as he entered the next corridor over, continuing to monitor the suspicious guard.

But when he suddenly felt something bump into his back, Gordon jumped and spun around faster than a speeding bullet.

Predictably, there Benrey stood, hands behind his back.

“Does that mean I can come with?”

“Ah! Hello, Benrey! What a welcome surprise!” Coomer chimed, paying no mind to Gordon’s apprehensiveness.

Gordon let loose a flurry of angry, nonsensical mumbling before exclaiming, “NO! NO!  **_NO_ ** WAY! YOU MAY ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, UNDER NO CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES COME WITH ME! BACK OFF  _ RIGHT NOW, RIGHT THIS INSTANT _ !”

Benrey - clearly not taking any of Gordon’s pointers to heart - only laughed at his outrage. Mockingly, he poised a finger on his cheek, one hand on his hip, one leg twisting inwards and outwards. “I could  _ help _ you, you know…”

Gordon, getting tired of this bullshit, tried to pry him away from blocking his path. “Yeah. You could help by  _ not getting in my way.  _ Just leave me alone, man.”

“No,  _ really, _ ” Benrey added, “I could  _ actually  _ help you, bro. We could  _ totally _ be friends.” Then, he cocked his head to the side, looking to the right. “If you  _ let _ me, that is..”

Coomer slid down back to Gordon’s shoulders. “Joshua, I think you’re being cruel to this fine young man!  _ Please _ give him a chance!”

Gordon looked around warily. “....and  _ how _ could you help me, again? Because you  _ sure _ haven’t been helping me so far.” 

Benrey shilly-shallied around the question for a moment before pulling out a pack of gum from his vest pocket and tossing more tabs than necessary in his mouth all at once. “Well, for starters,” he said in between chews, “I’m  _ cool _ . Like,  _ so _ cool, man. Second, I’m magic. That’s also what makes me like cool as hell. I can't exactly tell you  _ how _ I’m magic, because it’s a surprise.”

Gordon and Coomer both exchanged inquisitive looks.

Then, Benrey blew a giant bubble, and then gulped the entire wad down in one fell swoop. “Oh, yeah. I can also do this.” He said, raising a finger for emphasis. He stopped to take a breath, and then he pivoted to the side. 

Unexpectedly, he spat out a string of glowing multicolored orbs straight onto the floor. His mouth was open like he was singing, but what instead came out was the sound of an electric guitar. With each new orb, the sound of a new note followed.

Gordon couldn’t believe his eyes, or, rather, his ears. Coomer looked on with intrigue, a glove on his chin.

When the demonstration was done, Benrey returned to his normal position, tucking his arms back behind him. 

“Also, it heals people.”

A sigh came from Gordon.

“Okay, you know what? I give up. Come with if you want.”

“Really? Gee, thanks.”

“ **_BUT_ ** .” Gordon pointed a finger directly in the middle of Benrey’s face, causing him to step back a little. “We’re gonna have to set up some rules.”

“Mhm?”

“Okay, so, number one:  _ no _ setting things on fire. Number two:  _ no _ going out of my line of sight, 6 feet apart at  _ maximum _ . Number 3:  _ no _ being a huge asshole like you normally are, and definitely  _ no _ calling me names. J-just shut up, stay silent, and  _ don’t _ cause chaos. Just be normal. Easy. That can’t be so hard, right?”

“Damn.” Benrey groaned. “ _ Those are, like, my favorite pastimes _ . But you know what? Just for you, bro.”

“You promise?”

“Yeah. I’ll bite.”

Gordon propped his hands on his hips, nodding exhaustedly. “Alright. Good -“

Then, out of the blue, Benrey began running for the hills, speeding past the corridor without giving it a second thought.

“Wh-  **HEY!** ” Gordon exclaimed, clenching his fists and going after him.  **_“WHAT’D I SAY ABOUT RULE NUMBER TWO_ ** ?!”


	6. Chapter 6

“Hey, Benrey?”

“Huh? Whuh?”

“I really hate to ask you for help - I’m not even sure I  _ want _ it, but - do you know what these things are?”

Benrey ushered himself forward to scout out the issue at hand.

Gordon had found yet another hole, not in the floor, but in the wall. That is to say,  _ holes. _ Plural. Entire clusters of the things. These, too, retained the cube-like shape of the hole in the first room.

When Benrey looked through the holes, he observed that they didn’t provide a view into the next room over or the external shell of the facility. Peculiarly, they led straight into a black, encompassing void.

He pulled back.

“That’s pretty fucked up.” Was all he had to say on the matter.

“Well yeah, no duh, Einstein. I mean, like, do you know what these are? Why are they here? This  _ can’t _ be normal…..didn’t you have a name for them?”

Benrey took a long, hard look at the wall, then unfurled a hand. He thumbed through the oddly-textured surface, navigating his fingers through the margins as if he were drawing a line through a maze.

“Benrey, watch out! Those holes could be dangerous!” Dr. Coomer belled, standing up straight on Gordon’s shoulder.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, doc. I know.” Benrey responded flatly.

Disregarding the sentient encyclopedia’s warnings, Benrey continued to feel around the wall. Slowly, he maneuvered himself further, his steps becoming more cautious as he went on. 

He slowed down on one particular area, then came to a stop.

There, a paint-like fuchsia substance oozed out of the gaps in reality.

Benrey took a look at his boney hand. Then, almost thoughtlessly, he stuck a finger through one of the bigger ones.

Gordon stumbled back.

“B-Benrey, what are you doing?” He muttered, eyes widened.

Coomer joined the ‘remind Benrey that what he’s doing is dumb’ party. “Oh, boy, I wouldn’t do that if I were you!”

Despite all the chatter, Benrey remained wordless. If anything, all the concern only made him want to further inspect the area. Without even being conscious of it, he inserted his entire hand in. To his surprise, the more he stuck his appendage inside the thing, the square-shaped spot only expanded to fit.

The smarter of the three looked on in abject horror as Benrey removed his hand. It was drizzled in an ominous, purple-and-black checkered fluid.

Gordon winced. “Uhhh, dude?  _ Dude?!  _ Holy shit - check your  _ textures!” _

“Oh, dear!” Coomer added, “I must say, that does not look splendid!”

Benrey kept his internal vow of silence, allowing the anomalous sap to drip to the ground and pool at the soles of his shoes.

Continuing to test the patience of every breathing being around him, Benrey stuck out his tongue, inching his more fucked-up hand towards his mouth.

“ _ Benrey,” _ Gordon winced, extending a finger, “ _ don’t you fucking dare. _ ”

Upon hearing this, Benrey only brought his hand closer.

“ _ Benrey.” _

Another inch.

“ _ I swear to GOD.” _

_ Slurp. _

“Mm.” Benrey nodded, pulling the goo away from his lips. “Tastes like shit.”

Gordon never wanted to curl up in a tiny cave in a mountain, far, far away from any signs of humanity and lie down and die without consequence so badly in his life.

“What did I tell you.” Gordon grumbled, removing his hand from his forehead.

Benrey gave him a silent shrug.

“Benrey, may I ask you a few questions - if you don’t mind?” Coomer asked.

Looking down, Benrey saw Dr. Coomer climbing up his pant leg. He bent down, swiping the tiny teacher up, and placed him in his other non-contaminated hand.

“Sure. Lay it on me.”

“Thank you kindly. Firstly, might you know, by chance, what that strange substance is?”

Benrey licked at his fingers again, forcing Gordon to look away.

“This is Mountain Dew Game Fuel Electrifying Berry, yo. Shit’s rancid.”

“Right - might you know the source of said Mountain Dew Game Fuel?”

Benrey took a moment to think.

“....The Mountain Dew factory.”

“Noted! And lastly, how certain are you that it’s not deadly?”

“Bro, I’m gonna be real with you. If it was, I honestly wouldn’t give a fuck. A meal’s a meal.”

A loading spiral appeared over Coomer’s head as he stood in Benrey’s hands, buffering for a few seconds. After that, he sprung back to his usual chipper self.

“Thank you eons, Benrey! Thanks to your inspiring input, this discovery is now catalogued into the learning database! I think that we both deserve to celebrate this new, revolutionary finding by conducting a taste test on this earth-shattering material!”

Benrey raised an eyebrow.

“Nah, I’m good. You can help yourself though.” He said, raising the other hand up to Dr. Coomer’s level.

Dr. Coomer gasped, infatuated by the chance to test out this newfound substance. 

“How could I ever repay you, Benrey!”

Just as he was about to dive his hand into the weird juice, he froze up as soon as he made contact with it.

“Uhhh, Feetman?”

“What  _ now?” _

“I think your dog’s sick.”

“ _ Dog _ ?” Asked Gordon defiantly, “I don’t have a-“

When Gordon twisted around to see the two AI, his hands became clammy.

Coomer was in the exact same place, but now, he was nothing more than a stack of colorful bars composing a silhouette of his former self. As he struggled to maintain a physical form, his body - what was left of it, anyways - convulsed rapidly. A horrified screech emitted from the tiny doctor as he splashed around in the handheld pool of missing textures, sinking in and splashing out of it at impossible intervals.

“ **_WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HIM?!_ ** ” Gordon stomped, his hands gesticulating so wildly that he almost hit Benrey square in the jaw. 

Benrey nervously shifted his weight from side to side. “Okay for  _ once _ th-this isn’t my fault. I showed him the Mountain Dew Game Fuel Electrifying Berry and he just went on autopilot and went for a splash before I could stop ‘em! Now he’s gone all Titanic on my ass! I-I didn’t think it would, like,  _ hurt _ him!”

In a fit of pure unadulterated rage, Gordon grabbed Benrey by the shoulders and started shaking him frantically. “ **_THEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! DON’T JUST SIT THERE, DO SOMETHING! TAKE HIM OUT OF THERE!_ ** ”

Unceremoniously, Benrey dropped Coomer on the floor. He landed with a cartoony  _ squeak _ , now turned back to normal, although he did have a few flickers of glitches every now and then.

As swift as an arrow, Gordon picked up Dr. Coomer, who previously lay face first on the ground. Hands still shaking and very much out of breath, he poked at the poor thing. “D-doc…... _ Doctor Coomer _ ?” He said in between fits of panting. 

Just like that, Dr. Coomer came back to life, like the pages of a pop-up book - even exuding a cheery startup jingle as he rose back into action.

“Joshua, I have been tortured by the might of a thousand suns! The pain is unbearable! How might you be today?” He exclaimed in a tone of voice  _ far _ too easy-going to line up with what he was actually saying.

Gordon breathed a sigh of relief. 

“You okay, Dr. Coomer? You really gave everyone-”

He not-so-subtly gave a stink eye to Benrey, who in favor returned it with a ‘what did I do?’ type of shrug.

Gordon continued, “- Well,  _ almost _ everyone - a real heart attack there.”

“All’s good and well in the name of science, Joshua!”

“But - you almost  _ died! _ ”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”

With this, Coomer jumped onto Gordon’s chest, then slid down his HEV suit, his feet making yet another squeaky-toy noise as he took a step. 

“Now, we’ve no time for dillydallying! Let's continue onwards, shall we?”


	7. Chapter 7

Turning the corner, the group found themselves stopping in their tracks.

Using his arms as improvised barriers, Gordon held Benrey back from continuing any further, preventing him from completely clipping out of the map. Coomer slowly revealed himself from the back of Gordon’s neck piece, his rubber hose eyes widening even more so than before.

“ _Misery me, Joshua! Mind the gap_!”

The ground that lay in front of Gordon failed to serve its purpose. In fact, it failed to even be _deemable_ as ground at all. The tiled flooring faded into obscurity, and the hallway itself opened up to the surroundings, like the entryway of a cavern, exposing it to a new breed of void Gordon had never seen in this game prior; surrounding the three was a total lack of color, a complete state of blankness. A blinding white.

Luckily, it wasn’t a complete dead end, as another tunnel-like hallway opened up downwards to the corridor the trio was standing on. It was a steep drop, though, so perhaps all was decidedly not in their favor after all.

Gordon chewed the surroundings before grabbing hold of Benrey, turning him back around to safety.

“Everyone, huddle together. W-we need to think quickly on this one. Anyone got any ideas as to how we’re getting across this?”

Benrey stroked an imaginary beard. “Hm. I think I got something.”

Gordon’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Wait, no, I-I lost it.”

A sigh. “Benrey, please. This is no time for playing games-“

“Hold on! I think I got it! ...Eh, actually, nah. Nevermind. Forgot what I was gonna say again.”

Gordon placed the edge of his palm against his temple, smearing it agitatedly against his forehead. “This is _serious,_ you two. I’m not playing around here. Uhhhhhh - wait, _Coomer_!”

“Who, me?” Coomer bubbled, peeking out from Gordon’s ponytail.

“Yes, you! Listen, do you remember how you used geometry to help me out that one time? When me and you first met?”

Coomer eyed the ceiling, then looked back at Gordon with an affirmative nod.

“Great - you think you could work that again?”

“Well, Joshua, I’d have to see for myself!” 

“O-okay, why don’t you do that now?”

Equipped with the permission to do so, Coomer bounded off the HEV suit once more and cautiously tiptoed towards the edge of the map.

A few tense seconds passed by before a big red exclamation mark appeared over Dr. Coomer’s head as he walked, hands a-swinging towards the two, and then energetically bounced up and down.

Gordon smiled. “What’s that, little guy? Got something for us?”

“Yes, in fact, I do Joshua! And I think you’ll find my results quite enthralling!”

“Do tell.” Benrey chipped in.

Coomer swayed back and forth. “You see, I was unable to calculate a shape - or a slope for that matter - that would properly align with the measurements of this incline.”

“Uh, could you put that in dumbass terms? I’m sure Feetman here could really use a simpler explanation.”

 _I want to hurt you,_ Gordon’s mind internally shouted at Benrey, _I want to hurt you so bad._

“Essentially,” Coomer’s face drooped, “ **we’re doomed**.”


	8. Chapter 8

Knowingly, Gordon groggily looked over at Benrey. Out of options, he asked him, “Benrey, do you care to share with the class whatever’s bouncing around in that twisted, fucked up little mind of yours?”

Benrey strutted to the forefront, exuding stage presence. “Feetman, I’m _magic._ Remember? Well, since I’m so magical and so mystical and so cool and cute, and not to mention I’m _better_ than you in every way, shape, and form…I could _probably_ manage to cast my cool spell to haul your sorry ass across. Though, then again, it might not work. Not because I’m a bad magician or anything, but because you’re just so unswag that it’s going to mess with my vibes. Or something.”

“‘Probably’? What do you mean _‘probably’_? How come you don’t you just teleport us across?”

“ _Uh_.” Benrey said bluntly, scratching the back of his neck. “M-my. Teleportation organ is…..uhhh. Out of commission right now. It….w-won’t work. Here.”

A suspicious frown sprawled across Gordon’s face.

“ _Also my magic would just be cooler than boring ol’ teleportation anyways, so. Yeah._ ”

“Benrey,” Coomer gushed, “I would _love_ to see your magic in action!”

Gordon gave in. “You know what? Go ahead. Whatever bullshit method you have to use, use it, as long as it gets us out of here alive. So, what do I have to do here? Do I have to say some sort of magic word?”

The security guard only chuckled, and shook his head. “No, none of that. All you have to do is-“

Then, Benrey slowly rose a hand up to Gordon’s eye level.

“ **_-hold on tight.”_ **

He was about to do as Benrey said, but then, the irate man’s head slanted to the side and he held his hand in place. 

“How do I know that I can trust you on this? And will Coomer get hurt again? I _really_ would not like that - he’s the most useful part of our team, after all.”

Coomer, still hitching a ride on Gordon, kicked his legs back and forth ambly. “I _love_ being useful, Joshua!”

“You gotta understand,” Benrey threw in, “that it’s either my way, or it’s the ‘you die’ way. The choice is yours, Feetman. Which one’s it gonna be?.”

Gordon took a few tics to contemplate Benrey’s words. If he went with him, he wouldn’t know _what_ he’d try to pull. He could let go of him mid-journey, leaving him to float in the void for eternity. Hell, he could just cut the first part and get right to the chase, using his “magic” to banish him to the void. He could befall the same fate as Coomer was before he got resuscitated. Then again, what would happen if he _didn’t_ go with? He couldn’t even imagine it.

His decision was final.

With a worried stare, he grabbed onto Benrey’s hand.

The sudden jolt of direct physical contact sent a chill down Benrey’s spine. 

He didn’t expect him to _actually_ trust him.

Benrey found himself subconsciously blushing - not so much that it was clearly visible, but noticeable enough so that whoever was standing directly in front of him could undoubtedly pick up on it. Luckily - or _unluckily_ , in his case - that person was Gordon, and Gordon clearly wasn’t getting the same vibe from this interaction as his arch-nemesis was.

“So are we going or…?”

“Huh? Oh.” The guard wiped a hand across his face. “Yeah, its just that y- your lack of gamer swag is like, attacking me head-on, and it’s throwing off my cool magic aura. It’s nothing, really. Just don’t be lame, and you won’t get hurt.”

“ **Joshua, I’m thirsty!** ” Coomer piped up.

“I know, Dr. Coomer, I know, I’m thirsty too.” Replied Gordon, giving him a gentle pat on the head with his unoccupied hand. Dr. Coomer seemed to greatly appreciate his gesture of affection, as he nudged his head into the middle of Gordon’s palm, as if he were a kindly old cat. 

There was no time for comfort, though, as Gordon felt a tugging sensation coming from his other hand. He looked over to see Benrey, nearly leaning over the edge. This time, he looked significantly more composed.

“Ready to go, loser?”

Gordon’s grip on Benrey’s hand tightened. “Yeah! I am!-” Suddenly becoming self-aware of the playful tone he was using, Gordon fake-coughed and calibrated himself back to his normal, bitter demeanor. “ **_AHEM_ ** . I-I mean. Let’s go. _Loser_.”


	9. Chapter 9

“Cool. So, the first step - literally - is to not look down.” Benrey gloated, swinging one foot in front of an invisible platform, yet somehow still remaining stagnant. “The moment you look down,” he continued, “is the moment when you, like, lose all composure.”

“ _ Right. _ ” 

Gordon followed Benrey’s movements as he waited for him to come down, considering going back up when he saw that his step caused a slight purple ripple in the void.

“Also, if you look down, you’ll lose track of where your footing was.”

Another step down onto the next tier of the invisible staircase.

Gordon gulped, trying to divert his attention from the endless void below. _Eyes on the prize,_ _Gordon_ , he repeated in his head, _eyes on the prize._

“And if you lose track of your footing…”

Another step.

Beads of sweat began to drop down Gordon’s forehead, trickling down the length of his glasses.

Another.

“....you’ll fall off and fail. Pretty epically if I do say so myself.”

The player tried to reassure himself. They were about a quarter of the way there. It wouldn’t take long.

Benrey continued, “For that very same reason…”

Step. 

“...you can’t look backward...”

Step.

“...to the side…”

Step.

“Or any direction other than the front.”

Step.

“And it’s also why you have to keep on your heels, bro.”

Step.

Gordon felt himself getting nauseous.

“Because…”

Step.

The sweat from his forehead began to trickle down to his hands. They started to shake.

“...if you aren’t always moving…”

Step.

Gordon’s bottom eyelids began twitching uncontrollably.

“Then the platform you’re standing on..”

Step.

“..Will disappear.”

On that specific step -  _ right  _ at the halfway point no less - when Benrey’s hand tugged at Gordon’s to indicate him to step down, Benrey didn’t hear his step being followed by another. 

He looked over his shoulder, only to his shock and dismay, to find Gordon, both hands to his sides firmly, hyperventilating, looking  _ straight down. _

Overhead, Benrey could see that the void of the area was transitioning from the lightest white to the color of the blackest night. In the skybox, tiles of ivory switched to that of ebony.

His attention returned to Gordon, the step below him flashed bright purple, indicative that the platform was going to cave in. Coomer held on for dear life.

Benrey knew that they didn’t have much time, and if he stood around for much longer,  _ he  _ wouldn’t have much time, either.

He had to act  _ now. _

As the void itself around them crumbled, Benrey ran as quickly as he could, forcibly grabbing Gordon by the wrist. Gordon didn’t have time to react - lest to say anything whatsoever - as he felt his entire body go limp, cascading along the staircase as Benrey tugged at him with a strength Gordon didn’t know he had in him.

His knees hit stair after stair without him even having to move a muscle, and as all this was going on, he looked on in silent terror as he watched the invisible staircase he’d just been standing on moments before become lost to the void, with each purple step falling into the abyss. The emptiness that had coated the walls made way for giant black squares with white borders, all of which would quickly fall apart, revealing the darkest color that Gordon had ever laid eyes on. A small grip locked across his neck as Dr. Coomer froze himself in place.

Gordon’s heartbeat went into overdrive. He looked back at Benrey, continuing to heave him along briskly, determined as all hell to get him out of there in a state that at least  _ resembled _ that of someone who’d been unscathed by it all.

Now, it was down to 5 steps.

4 steps.

3 steps.

2 steps.

_ 1 step. _

When Benrey saw that light at the end of the tunnel come into view, the speed at which he leaped for it was immediate. As soon as the sole of his shoe made contact with the white tiles, the entire wall revealing the void closed in on itself, locking off the corridor’s entrance.

Naturally, gravity took its course, and with three entire people in toe, the end result was not exactly the most graceful landing.

The group got tangled up in the commotion, sending them all somersaulting forward in unison. The only thing stopping them was a nasty face-to-face encounter with a wall. The moment the trio hit the surface, they were all sent rebounding back with a THUD, with Gordon even sliding face-first across the floor.

Benrey was the first one to emerge from the catastrophe, his breath staggered and harsh.

Coomer’s bounce back to normalcy was not difficult in the slightest, rising up in a matter not to dissimilar to that of a punching bag that’d been whalloped into oblivion.

Gordon, though, was the first one to speak, and what came out of him was  _ far  _ from what Benrey expected him to say.

“You..you saved my  _ life.” _

To his surprise, this time, as Gordon propped himself up with one elbow, he sounded  _ genuine.  _

“Th- _ Thank you.” _

When Gordon’s eyes met that of his adversary, then and only then could Benrey truly tell the scope of his up-frontness. His pupils were the size of a baseball, and Benrey could’ve sworn he saw his own reflection with how much his eyes shined.

“I...“ Benrey took pause. What was he to do  _ now _ ? Was he redeemed in Gordon’s eyes? Did he see him as  _ good _ ? Could he get away with being nice to him, or would he pick up on it instantly?

Unable to handle change so quickly, Benrey just went back to how he normally responded to praise. 

“I cant believe you ruined my  _ favorite  _ staircase, bro! I was g-gonna go show my friend that, and now, thanks to  _ you,  _ I’m - I’m never gonna get to do that. It fucking  _ sucks _ .” He said, jabbing his head to the side.

Gordon only stared at him before letting out a laugh.

“Whatever, man.” He cracked up, allowing Coomer to return to his arm once more. “You do you.”

As he judged his new surroundings, Coomer’s face lit up like a lightbulb.

“Look, Joshua! A soda machine! We can use those to obtain our very own sodas, which provide a fair and balanced amount of of energy  _ and _ hydration!”

The two faded out of Benrey’s view, sparking a discussion on soda and whatnot.

Benrey, still lounging on the ground, only smiled. He got to his knees and took off after them, exclaiming a hurried “Hey, dinguses! You better not forget about me!”

But, as Benrey got closer, he couldn’t help but listen in on a particularly heated argument happening just one room up ahead...


	10. Chapter 10

“YOU USED MY BIKE AS A GETAWAY VEHICLE FOR YOUR **_DOG?!_ **”

“It- it was more of an emergency situation! I had no other choice!”

“ **_YOU HAD NO OTHER CHOICE?!_ **”

“Sir, I - n- no! Not really!”

“Oh, come _on-_ that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard! That was _my_ bike! I earned it, dammit!”

“There must be some way I - I could pay you back! M-maybe a soda would help?”

“You think a soda can make up for my lost sense of dignity?! **_Are you out of your mind, kid?!_ **”

Benrey sat perched, face pressed up against the glass window pane which served as the only barrier between the outside world and the two-person shouting match. Retreating, he turned his back against it and allowed his body to slide back down to the sitting position.

“What’s the read?” Gordon asked him, propped up against the metal shingle.

This was met with a shake of the head. “Still goin’ at it.”

“ **Joshua, I’m thirsty!** ”

Gordon pressed a finger up against his lips, ushering along a shushing noise. “Don’t be so loud!” He hissed. “You’re gonna blow our cover!”

“Yo, I think they have vending machines in there bro.”

“So?”

“That’d shut up your dog for a while, right?”

“I-“ Gordon looked down at Coomer, then back up at Benrey. “...like, I _guess_ ? But - but that doesn’t really matter. Getting through there is _kind of_ my number one priority right now.”

“So what you’re saying is, I should make a distraction.”

“Yes! Ye- wait, _what?”_

It was far too late for Gordon to make any objections to this last-minute plan, as Benrey was already going for the door’s handle like a fox going after a rabbit. Without giving it any extra thought, he shoved himself through the entrance, standing aloof in the gateway.

At this, the two quarrelers fell silent.

“Who the _fuck_ are you?” The older one yelled, making it sound less like a question and more along the lines of a statement.

In that moment, inexplicably, it was as if a switch flipped inside of Benrey’s brain.

Benrey extravagantly drifted his leg from the back to the front.

“I’m James Bond 2, baby.”

“ _James Bond 2?_ ” Chattered the one in the propeller hat. “From Russia? With _Love?”_

It dawned on Benrey that he’d never actually seen a James Bond movie in his entire life, nor did he know any of the titles of the subsequent sequels. Had he actually seen _any_ movies, for that matter?

“No. From Antarctica. W...with _hate._ ”

“Mr. Bond 2, I need your help with something.” The white-haired man snapped. “I need you to tell this young man-“

“I’m _36_.” The other retorted.

“...This _36-year-old_ man,” he sneered, “that he’s being a complete _imbecile.”_

“Hey!” The taller of the two glowered, jabbing his elbow into the shorter one’s side.

Benrey’s eyes met the glass pane opposite to him. There, on the other side, Gordon looked on, dumbstruck.

“Um.” The guard started, eye contact metronoming between Gordon and the topic at hand. “Listen, I hate to tell you this, man, but...you’re kinda….d-dense.”

It was official - Gordon had lost all previous faith in knowing what Benrey was doing.

Sure, before this whole ordeal, Gordon had never accurately been able to pinpoint the inner mechanisms of Benrey’s labyrinthine brain in the very short period of time he’d known him, but here? He genuinely had _no_ idea what he was trying to pull off. What excuse could he possibly have for treating sneaking past an argument like it was some sort of covert spy operation? Furthermore, if he was trying to make his presence as undetectable as possible, why was he stalling the fight? And why was he only adding fuel to the fire by partaking in it as well? There was no need to make this as complicated as it was, after all, all the three had to do was get in, then get out. For all intents and purposes, it should’ve been as easy as that. But no. It wasn’t. _Why would it be,_ Gordon asked himself.

He snapped back to reality as the bickering only worsened.

“No, I-I’m not!” The man with the striped hat retaliated. “Yeah! I-If, If anything, then, Mr. Bubby is the one to blame here! I read the 5 driving laws - uh, there used to be 4, but they- they added another one because Mr. Bubby is just that mean - and it says that it’s illegal, actually, to leave your unattended vehicle unlocked in a public space!” He finished off his rebuttal by waving his fingers in front of Bubby’s face. “Don’t you see, Mr. Bond 2? H-he sort of had it coming!”

Bubby’s eyebrows snapped together. “Oh, _no,_ Tommy _._ ” The bomber-jacket-clad racer insisted, shoving the latter to the side. “No way in _hell_ is that justified. James Bond 2, are you listening to this? Tell me. What do _you_ think? Obviously, I’m not one for laws - but in your opinion, is grand theft auto grounds to sue when it happens to me and me _only_?”

Benrey blinked, barely knowing the meaning of half of the words that were being flung his way. A loading screen looped in his mind. He looked back to Gordon for guidance, only to be greeted by the most impatient death stare in the world. Then, at long last, he read the room.

“Well, my philosophy is-“ Benrey outstretched his palm and wiggled his fingers, motioning for Gordon to open the door. “-we don’t like, _own_ anything.”

A single click sounded from the door.

“W-“

“Hear me out here.” Benrey shot up, halting Bubby from forming another word. “Aren’t we, as a species, just _borrowing_ things, if you really think about it?”

Gordon, taking advantage of the sudden silence, pried open the door a small amount so as to be able to get a visual window into what was going on. Coomer followed suit.

Tommy took a second to lull over the conversation before letting out a “W-well, I _guess…_?”

“And if we’re just, you know, mooching off these materials - w-which we _are_ , then...then the practice and idea of property is, in and of itself, founded upon a myth.”

Benrey heard the sound of something rustling up against hard tile floors as Gordon sheepishly inched his way across the perimeter of the room, with Benrey taking measures to obscure his friend/enemy by continuing to monologue on, occasionally even leaning towards whatever direction he was facing to obstruct the two potential threats from forming a direct line of sight.

As Gordon cautiously ventured across, though, he couldn’t help but look up at what he was trying to avoid. 

Throughout his playthrough thus far, Gordon had remarked to himself that it was somewhat odd that none of the models of the NPCs seemed to match up with the grainy, almost grotesque style of vanilla Half-Life. It was hard for him to place his finger on it, but the closest resemblance that came to mind was if a variety of characters from a wide range of different cartoons got together for some cheesy 80’s Saturday morning crossover special. As he looked at the two NPCs listening intently to Benrey's lecture about object permanence, his growing feeling that something might be wrong here only increased.

The appearances of the two people, who he assumed to be the Bubby and Tommy that’d been brought up in passing, was like looking at night and day. Tommy looked like he’d just robbed a Sanrio, what with the abundance of pastel pinks and fluffy yellows adorning his outfit, covering him head to toe. As for Bubby, though, Bubby looked like he had better things to do - namely being, attending that day’s demolition derby. Just by looking at the guy, you could tell he likely wouldn’t hesitate to cut the tires of your car, judging by his bomber jacket and racing suit getup. 

Gordon raised an eyebrow, remarking to himself how out of place they looked. However, as he looked down at his shoulder, Gordon realized that their appearances weren’t the _only_ thing out of place.

His eyes darted up as he helplessly watched Coomer across to the vending machine directly behind Bubby, like he was a kid going through the doors of a candy store. He suppressed the urge to yell at him to come back, knowing that doing so would completely blow his cover.

Gordon felt himself losing brain cells as Coomer slammed his tiny fists up against the machine, quickly drawing the attention of the intimidating-looking biker.

“Eh? What’chya want, ya lil’ twerp?” Bubby said under his breath.

Coomer stiffly pointed at the soda dispenser.

“ **Bubby, I’m thirsty!** ” 

Although Bubby had opted out of the discussion, Tommy still seemed to be paying attention to Benrey’s existentialist-turned tangent. Still, by the power of whatever higher being, he was unable to tell that Gordon was there in the room at all.

With a groan, Bubby bent down to Coomer’s level, flattening his hand and reaching it out as an improvised platform for the charming fellow. Coomer reluctantly took up the offer, now finding himself at eye level with the buttons. Out of a sense of obligation, Bubby reached for his pocket with his free hand, pulling out two quarters and placing them in the hands of the tiny scientist. “Yknow what? Go ahead. Knock yourself out. Not like I’m gonna find anything better to use my one buckaroo on ‘round these parts.”

Coomer pressed a button at random, then returned to the ground, merrily awaiting the arrival of his beverage. With a _thump_ , the soda flew out onto the floor. As soon as he got a hold of the can of Coca-Cola, Coomer let his instincts consume him, slamming the container into oblivion, slurping up the sugar-infested remains like a vampire drawing out blood.

While this didn’t seem to phase Bubby in the slightest, the same could not be said for Gordon.

Then, without a care in the world, Coomer trotted back to Gordon, reprising his position on his back.

Gordon _tried_ to get himself back together after witnessing such a blast of shock - but it was all for naught, as swiftly, a brittle voice was dealt out over his ears.

“Hey, Tommy, isn’t _that_ your dog?”

Gordon hunched up, his back arched.

The entire room’s attention turned to him.

Tommy’s head tilted, eyes narrowed.

“Nnnno. That’s not my - that’s not my dog, Mr. Bubby. My dog is as yellow, yellow a-as mellow yellow, as a wheat field lit by a sunlight sky in the summertime.”

“Well, then, whose dog is it?” Bubby scratched his head.

Gordon felt himself being dragged by his arms, then the sensation of being hoisted up by his armpits.

“T-this is my dog friend, uh…”

Benrey wheeled Gordon around to face him, his gangly arms working overtime to support his body mass. He eyed down the emblem on his suit like he was reading a dog tag.

“His name’s Gordon Freeman.”

“Oh!” Tommy piped up. “I know that guy!-“ 

Instantaneously, Tommy went rigid, his warm expression frozen in time. While he himself was paralyzed, the edges of his model jittered uncontrollably, with sparks of tiny squares peppered around his body, phasing in and out. His voice lingered on that last syllable, repeating it on loop like a broken record. It wasn’t before he went back to normal, this time with his welcoming look replaced with that of confusion.

“I-I’ve _never_ seen this man in my life.”

Gordon’s eyes dilated. He seemed to be the only one in the room to notice the glitch though, as, if everything was perfectly fine and dandy, Bubby readjusted his sports sunglasses and sauntered towards him suspiciously. 

“I think your dog is _very_ fucked up.”

“Well, yeah, he’s got…uh...worms. _Cringe_ worms. The worst kind. I’m gonna take him to the vet once he stops being so unepic.”

A primitive-sounding melody emitted from Tommy’s pocket.

“Oh! Suh-speaking of dogs...“ He said, displaying the source of the noise for everyone to see - an outdated flip phone covered in the highest percentage of stickers known to mankind. “Uh, e-excuse me. That must be Sunkist.”

Tommy raised his cellular device up to his ear as it began ejecting the bark of a dog.

Silently, the group all looked to Tommy, utterly bamboozled.

“What’s that, Sunkist? Y-you have the _bike_?”

More barking came from the phone, this time overlapping the roar of a motorcycle engine.

“A-...and you’re bringing it _back_ ? _Here_? Now?-”

This, too, was met with a woof.

Tommy stopped. “Ah. Okay,” he trailed on, “where….where are you meeting us again?”

Another pause.

“ _Outside?_ ”

He and Bubby exchanged glances as the dog on the other end kept yapping something only Tommy seemed to understand.

“Uh-Huh. Got it. So...outside it is. And y-... you say you’re sorry for stealing his bike…?”

Bubby perked up as Tommy looked at him again.

“ _She says she’s sorry._ ” He mouthed to him silently, eliciting a hurried nod from the racer.

A few more howls came from the end before Tommy ended the call with a “Yep! O-okay. See you there!”

Tommy hung up, then marched back to the group from the corner of the room.

“W-well, er. Sunkist is - Sunkist, she’s... on her way here right now, actually, and she says we need to meet her on the surface. Th-that’s where she’ll give you the bike back.”

Bubby folded his arms.

“Whatever. You _better_ not be joshing me though, kid, or I’ll have your head on a platter.”

Coomer popped back up just as Gordon was formulating the words he wanted to push out. “I hope you don’t mind the offer, but would you two gentlemen like to come with us?” He chimed. “I implore you to - journeys are far better when you have more company!”

Tommy gave a shrug. “Y-yeah. That’d be - that’d be much more convenient, I do suppose.”

This was followed up by an affirmative, albeit unsure, nod of the head on Bubby’s end. “Fine by me.”

“Hey!” Gordon argued, brows furrowing. “I didn’t agree to-“ 

Then, he was cut off by a hearty tap from the shoulder from who else but Benrey.

“ _Just go with it, Feetman._ ” He hissed, in a tone bordering on annoyance.

Heeding this warning, Gordon quickly corrected himself. “...N-nevermind then. Uh, you two _can_ come, if you like, but, um, just...just don’t cause trouble or anything, got it?”

Provoking a duet of collective “m-hms” from the new members, Gordon drew a sigh of relief.

“Okay, so-“

In an instant, Gordon - along with the rest of the newly-founded team - stumbled back from their compact group huddle. In the middle of their circle, a black, ominous-looking rectangle suddenly unfolded and stood boldly in place. Gordon felt his back hit the wall as the mysterious 2D obelisk stretched to form a giant barricade, dividing the group between whatever side of the thing they happened to end up on.

“Benrey, what the _fuck_ did you do now?”

“Huh?! T-that wasn’t _me_ , bro! I don’t know what that even _is_!”

Blue, pixelated text began spanning the width of the box.

**‘This message is addressed to one ‘Mr. Freeman.’’**

“Lucky you! It looks like you got mail!” Coomer said, somehow maintaining his signature sing-song tone even under such a strenuous situation.

A prompt to proceed to the next page of text displayed itself right within Gordon’s reach. Ignoring the terror eating away at him, he tapped ‘Next’.

‘ **You have approximately 25 minutes to arrive at the test chamber.** ”

_Next._

‘ **Failure to comply with this order will result in immediate termination.** ’

His eyes slowed down at those last two words. Immediate termination. Keyword being _immediate_. A chill surged through him as the implications that phrase implied ran through his head. He pressed the button again.

‘ **Please heed this warning, and do proceed with caution.** **Thank you for your understanding.** ’

When he went to reach for the button, he found that it was no longer there.

His posture relaxed as the grim notification shrunk down to a molecular size, and just like that, it was gone.

The ragtag group all looked at each other with unsettled eyes.

As he pointed towards the door, Gordon only had one thing to say:

 _“I think we should go now_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🌈 Hi! It’s me, the author here! Just coming in with a quick little message for you.
> 
> First of all, I want to personally thank you for reading through ten whole chapters of this! I know it’s been really long, but hopefully you’ve enjoyed it so far! Honestly, when I began writing for this fic, I never thought I’d have so much to say about it - but the more I thought about it the more my list of ideas grew and grew, so I can’t thank you enough for sticking around for this wild ride!
> 
> Secondly, I apologize for the brief delay between this update and the earlier one. Going forward, the chapters on this bad boy are going to be about the length of this one - maybe longer? Who knows! - so in the case where there’s a few days where this fic doesn’t get updated, just know that it takes me a little while to type these longer chapters up, and that I use all that time to cram in as much care into this crazy little story as I possibly can!
> 
> Thank you for understanding!  
> \- Love, Rudy✨


	11. Chapter 11

To say that the testing chamber was  _ not _ as Gordon remembered would be mankind’s greatest understatement.

Gone were the days where the chamber had any semblance of its normal, brutalist interior. In its place lay a mangled cacophony of impossible staircases and doors that seemed to open up to nowhere and windows that shone light from places light could never realistically be birthed. As if that weren’t surreal enough, loud, obnoxious patterns chased one another across the abstract plane. If he hadn’t known any better, Gordon would have assumed this colorful pastel vomit hellscape was nothing but fodder from between the pages of a Dr. Suess book, but lo and behold, the place was as tangible as tangible could be.

Upon this ungodly sight, Bubby immediately made a beeline for the door.

“Yep.  **Fuck this** .”

Gordon, still mesmerized, yet terrified, from the sheer scale of the labyrinthine structure, grabbed Bubby’s shoulder, preventing him from escaping.

A flinch came from Gordon as he felt the sudden riff of a bass guitar, followed by a turn from the man himself.

Benrey entered his direct line of sight, shooting out a beam of dots with tiny triangles in the middle, each one stranding with the next one like the strings of a guitar. 

Gordon rubbed his eyes.

“Huh?”

Benrey looked down sheepishly, just as Tommy raced in front of him.

“Oh! T-these  _ orbs _ !” Tommy gushed, grinning ear to ear.

Gordon gave Tommy a look. “What? What about ‘em?”

“You see - I’m very familiar with these types of spheres, a-and...and I study them in my free time, Mr. Freeman! I’m a spherologist! Suh-some spheres, when you line them up, e-even match and they’re really powerful! Benrey, uh, would you mind if I decoded  _ your _ spheres?”

“Go ahead, bro.”

Tommy followed the trail of multicolored orbs, inspecting each one briefly, yet confidently.

Then, at the end of the line, he bobbed back up like a bouncy castle being pumped up. 

“Ah! I couldn’t find a match, but I  _ did _ find a read!”

“Do tell!” Coomer rung.

“O-ok,” Tommy went on. “Brown to yellow….m-means….”

A gasp.

“ _ LOOK OUT BELOW, MR. FREEMAN!!!!” _

A familiar black box with a familiar blue border ascended from the depths. It was, presumably, the same one the team had just ran into only a few fateful moments ago, albeit significantly smaller.

A nervous smile crawled across Gordon’s face.

“Uh?...Hey guys?  _ H-has anyone been keeping track of time.. _ ?” He said, impulsively stepping back.

Where Gordon expected to see text, a spectrogram lay in its place.

“Hello, Mr. Freeman **.** ” The window droned, it’s voice synthesized like it was coming straight out of a Commodore 64.

“Firstly,” it continued, “I sincerely apologize for the ambiguous wording of my latter warning. Had the circumstances been different, I would not have had to resort to such ominous phrasing, however, the time crunch we were under left me no other choice.”

Gordon attempted to collect himself. “Wait - you can  _ talk? _ ”

The pop-up circled around Gordon in a manner bordering on playful. “I can do many things, Mr. Freeman. Most importantly to you and your mission, though, I can fully guide you in navigating the testing chamber.”

Bubby’s lip curled. “Eh, I’m not buying what you’re selling. Didn’t you try to  _ kill us  _ back there?”

A chortle came from the rectangle. “Technically, no. I merely  _ threatened  _ you. Had you arrived a mere minute later than you did,  _ then _ it would have escalated to that.”

The room was filled with an awkward silence.

“I kid, I kid.” The black box rebuked. ”That would’ve happened to you if you showed up  _ two _ minutes later.”

Gordon budged in. “Look, are you going to help us or not?”

“Oh, I will. Trust me, I will. It’s my duty, after all.”

“Great. So, where exactly do we….uh…. _ start _ …” Gordon’s sentence tapered off, beholding the pure scale of the so-called testing chamber.

“That, there, is the easy part. All you need to do is let yourself fall-“

“Wait -  **what?!** ”

Before Gordon could object, the tiny box disappeared beneath the field of view. Bordering on the edge of the platform, Gordon saw the window disappearing into a pit that stretched on for an eternity.

“Oh  _ hell  _ no. I’m - I’m not doing  _ that _ !”

Benrey monotonously ambled towards the pit. “Sounds like a ‘ _ you’ _ problem.” He remarked, carelessly toppling off the edge.

Shocked, Gordon looked to his left, only to see Tommy doing the same. “It’s just like a trampoline, Mr. Freeman!” The last portion of his sentence echoed as he dived in.

“Not like I have anything better to do.” Bubby chuckled as he casually fell.

Surprised at the trio’s ability to literally jump to trust that strange message box, Gordon eyed down Coomer, who, as always. loyally stayed on his shoulder. “I-I dunno, Dr. Coomer...what do  _ you _ think?”

“Well, just from a glance, I’d have to side with the rest of our team in saying that this is a perfectly safe gambit indeed, Joshua!”

Gordon gulped, eyes nervously fixating on the pit of death.

“A-alright,” he said with a deep exhale, “hang on tight. We’re going in.”

Still feeling unsure, Gordon pushed his suspicions aside as he moved one foot forward, unable to feel any ground underneath it. With that, he was sent freefalling. He didn’t make any attempts to stop himself from screaming. Feeling any memory of being on solid ground slipping away, he looked on helplessly as the pit he found himself in began to change colors, adorning itself in stripes, stars, and an unfathomable amount of polka dots. The further he fell, the more the textures melded together, and the more complex and interwoven each pattern became. He felt the tunnel encompassing him twist and turn, tangling in on itself in a way that a fall straight down like this physically shouldn’t have been able to. If there were ever a time where Gordon felt as if he were going to meet his end, this was it.

Fortunately - or unfortunately, it wasn’t long before Gordon’s face met the ground below. Thankfully, the surface he fell on was not hard like the stiff tiles of the facility below, not in the slightest. However, the soft texture of the ground did little to obscure the pain inherent in landing on a flat surface after barreling down for what felt like miles. He groaned, forcing himself to his feet.

Feeling stars circle around hin, Gordon looked ahead. Everyone else already had a jumpstart on him as they chased after the black window that was now flying ahead. He thumbed around his shoulders, unable to find Dr. Coomer. He panicked, looking ahead to see that he, too, was going after the thing. It didn’t take long for Gordon to follow suit.

When he caught up with the rest of the group, Gordon stumbled across a large room. Inside this room lay a plethora of a seemingly infinite amount of switches, pulleys, and buttons, and it was covered floor to ceiling with more of those indescribable patterns.

Almost instantly, that mysterious panel pushed itself right in Gordon’s face, leading him to jolt back.

“Hello, Mr. Freeman. I see you’ve finally matched up with the rest of us?”

Gordon took a moment to briefly dust himself off, still visibly shaken. Trying in vain to seem like he wasn’t scared shitless, he replied with a “Y-yeah. Say, what’s going on?”

The console rocketed backwards towards the giant board of gizmos. “This, here, is what we call ‘The Monitor Room’. I’m sure you can gather as to why that is. Anywho, getting back on topic, here is where we at Black Mesa monitor the reactor core. The process of upkeeping the reactor core is a strenuous and often laborious one, but out of all of our employees here, I think you’re the best fit. That being said, are you up for the task, Mr. Freeman?”

With a trembling lip, Gordon nodded his head affirmatively. 

“Lovely.” The sentient GUI happily spun around clockwise.

“So, uh.” Gordon scratched the back of his neck. “What do we do first?”

“Excellent question, Mr. Freeman.” The thing sounded as if it was attempting to sound pleased, but its robotic restrictions kept it at bay, resulting in a slow, lagging, borderline sinister drawl.

It summoned a mouse-like cursor, dragging its new appendage over a bundle of specific levers located on the lower side of the motherboard. All of the levers, of course, lay within arm’s reach. “Your first task is to pull these five levers all at once. If you pull them individually, one after the other, you will fail the mission.”

“B-but I don’t have five hands! How am I supposed to do that?!”

“Can’t you see, Mr. Freeman? The answer is quite simple.” The suspect GUI motioned its improvised hand towards Gordon’s team. “You’ll need the help of your friends for this task.”

“But you said-“ Gordon sighed. “Nevermind, then.” He marched over to rejoin the group, all of them looking at him curiously.

“Guys, I need your help here.”

Coomer brightened up like a newly-installed light bulb. “Ooh! I just  _ love _ to help, Joshua!”

Gordon’s eyes met Coomer’s, who was now sitting on the side of Bubby’s coat.

“That’s great, Dr. Coomer. We need that. Look, I need all of you to do me a favor and pull those five levers at the same exact time as I do. I really don’t think we have a choice here. G-got it?”

This was met with a chorus of nods and agreements, leading the five back to the position of said levers. Positioning a hand on the bulb of one of the things, Gordon looked up to the hovering 2D square above him.

“Hey, so do we need to wait for a specific time or can we just do it whenever or..?”

The panel took pause.

After a while of complete, continuous silence, it finally seemed to jostle back to life.

“ **NOW.** ”

_ Click _ .

As a satisfying mechanical hum emanated from somewhere up above, the five let go of their grips on the levers.

“Wow, Feetman.” Benrey scoffed. “How’d you manage to  _ not _ fuck something up?”

The only thing Benrey got in response was a stink eye on Gordon’s end, which he bounced back from with a smug, toothy grin.

Once more, the pop up spun around. “Congratulations. You have successfully made it past step one.”

“Wow!” Tommy marveled. “W-we’re real puzzle solvers now!”

The paper-like tab circled around Tommy. “That you are - but don’t forget, we still have  _ 3 more steps to go. _ ”

Bubby put his hands to his hips. “And what would  _ that _ be?”

Not picking up on Bubby’s hostile tone, the object flew toward the next board of gadgets and resumed its instructional mannerisms. “Step two of the mission involves one out of you merry five pushing these buttons in a specific order. Think of it as a game of Simon Says.”

In the blink of an eye, Benrey rushed his way towards the front of the group. “Oh, I’m the  _ best _ at this shit, dude!”

A metallic sigh.

“Fine. Go ahead. You may start the step at any ti-“

Benrey didn’t hesitate, not even for even a millisecond. He immediately rushes towards the buttons, pressing each one in a highly particular, almost memorized order. The group - especially Gordon - looked on in awe at how quickly Benrey maneuvered around the board, not once showing any signs of his confidence in his abilities slipping. It only took about 50 seconds for Benrey to complete the puzzle. At this, the sound of something churning upwards sounded.

Despite all the intense handiwork he’s just performed, Benrey showed no signs of exhaustion. 

“There. Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

As quickly as that had happened, the panel drifted back around, becoming the focal point of the group once more. “Now, onto the second to last step: that being, step 3, of course.”

The box spun around, summoning a glowing orb from the palm of its hand-like pointer. 

“Lay your eyes upon this.”

Coomer lit up.

“Is that a tasty treat I see? A yummy munchie?”

Even though the console panel had no eyes, face, mouth, eyebrows, or anything that could possibly convey emotion, you could  _ tell _ that, somehow, it was giving the little doctor the most disgruntled look possible.

“....No.” It jeered, gyrating the sphere around itself. “This is what we’ll use to properly activate the reactor.”

A long, glass tube suddenly revealed itself out from the wall, extending horizontally towards the eccentric group of five. Upon closer inspection, the front of the tube had a hole in its middle, assumedly to fit the ball-like object inside.

“This step in the process is, as you’ll see, the easiest. All we need to do is get someone to put this in-“

“ **ME!** ” Tommy interrupted with a shout. “ **OOH! OOH! P-PLEASE PICK ME, MR. OBELISK SIR! I LOVE SPHERES! I’LL DO IT!!!** ” With every word that came out of his mouth, he sprung up and down like a jack-in-the-box, hand raised high in the air.

The black rectangle shimmied down to meet Tommy. “Well, you can’t argue with enthusiasm, I suppose.” With that, it deposited the giant glowing green marble-like item into the possession of the cheery scientist standing before it. Tommy played around with the object, rolling it in his hands giddily.

“Now,” the panel stretched its cursor, aiming and pointing it towards the opening in the tube, “why don’t you do the honors?”

That was all Tommy needed to energetically stroll up to the device, inserting the orb into its place as gently as a taxidermist handling butterfly wings. It fit right into place, making a  _ clack _ to signify so.

As Tommy warmly skipped back to the others, the GUI got right back into business.

“Congratulations. You have reached the final step. Do feel free to celebrate.”

A single unenthusiastic “ _ Woo. _ ” came from Bubby’s end.

Gordon spoke up. “Wait, shouldn’t that thing just carry through on its own?” He queried, gesturing towards the tube. “Why isn’t it moving?”

“That, Mr. Freeman, is where Step 4 - the final step to maintaining the reactor - comes into play.”

The group’s attention turned towards a popping noise, finding that the source of it happened to be the same tube where Tommy put the sphere in. Following these pops, small buttons emerged and stuck out from the unexposed surface of the tube. 

Ambling towards the tube, the rectangle explained further. “If you haven’t been made aware of it already, the way energy is carried out here in Black Mesa is entirely different to anywhere else in the world. Here, orbs of energy, like this one, are transferred through an intricate system of pipes, not too dissimilar to the workings of a subway system, and that is why we need to take precautions with how we send it through. You see, Mr. Freeman, had we sent this mass of energy out too early, it would’ve been likely that it would’ve gotten sent out to the wrong room, and considering the sheer amount of power stored inside of it, I do not doubt that the results would be catastrophic - had that situation became a reality.”

Gordon looked down awkwardly, feeling a bit stupid for asking. “ _ Right _ .”

“Thankfully with the assistance of these here buttons, by pressing them, we allow a specific path for the orb of energy to transfer itself to, which will deliver it to the reactor in the blink of an eye.”

“Okay, got you.” Gordon said. “We don’t have to do it in a specific way like the other ones, right?”

The rectangle chewed on it for a second. “Well,  _ yes _ , and also  _ no _ . How this will work is that you and your friends will, one after the other, push these buttons one by one. All of you have to use one hand in order for it to work.”

Gordon loosened himself up, relieved that he didn’t have to do anything too complicated. 

He made his way towards the first button, and the rest of the team followed after him. His finger lingered over the button, but he stopped himself and addressed the hovering console once more.

“Now?”

The box curved itself inward and outward, resembling a shrug. “Any time you’re ready.”

Gordon obeyed the instruction, pushing down on the circle, giving it a slight  _ ping _ . The other four replicated this behavior, all pushing their respective buttons. Just like that, the marble shot through the line, rocketing towards its destination.

Gordon wiped his palm, as the others, satisfied with their victory, stepped away.

“Joshua, we’ve done it! We’ve succeeded!”

They had no time to celebrate, though, as a blaring alarm, loud as could be, swiftly came over the intercom. Everyone in that room became as stiff as statues, unable to do anything as headache-inducing bright red and green lights flashed wildly around the small area.

“ **YOU FUCKED IT UP THIS TIME, DIDN’T YOU** ?!” Bubby screamed at the top of his lungs.

Defending himself, Gordon shouted back. “I- **I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I DID!** ” He shot an accusatory finger at the floating mysterious object. “ **THAT** **_THING_ ** **MADE ME DO IT** !” 

The audio waves on the display of the black panel twisted into something resembling a crooked smile.

Gordon furiously reached out to grab the cocky pop up message, with it dodging his swipes every time. His face distorted into that of an intense, burning rage. “ **_WHAT DID YOU MAKE ME DO?_ ** !?!” He chastised and bickered at the thing, but it refused to provide an answer. All this blind clawing led Gordon to trip on his feet, with the whole room beginning to shake.

Coomer sadly curled up on Bubby’s shoulder. “Joshua,  _ I thought I could trust you _ !”

“Yeah, Feetman,” Benrey added, “you, like,  _ totally _ let everyone down.”

Tommy, struggling to maintain balance, grabbed onto Benrey with an iron tight grip. “Aw, shit! What am I gonna tell Sunkist  _ now _ ?!”

Even when he was down, Gordon was determined to get something out of the panel, and finally, he grabbed ahold of its corners. It writhed, seething in pain as Gordon only tightened his hands around its sides.

As the two fought, the others’s attention turned to that of the front wall. To their dismay, the motherboard - along with the entire wall itself - split in two, revealing the reactor core. That is, what  _ should  _ have been the reactor core. 

In its place, a blinding white withered and stretched out desperately. Overtaking the light was a plethora of glitches and patterns, all bright, if not brighter, than the white that resides where the core stood. Countless noises blared from inside of the horrific sight. The sound of nails against a chalkboard and of someone destroying something metal, the sound of thunder crashing frantically around a small town. The walls themselves began to fall into the wormhole that’d just been opened, with chunks crumbling off and being sent spiraling around the core at a breakneck pace. 

Gordon didn’t seem to notice this, instead he just continued to shake the villainous shape in his hands. 

“ **WHAT DID YOU DO???** **_WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!”_ **

The GUI only laughed as Gordon pried at it for answers.

“My work here is done.” It calmly remarked.

Gordon stopped.

“ _ What?” _

He suddenly felt the window beginning to fold in his hands, condensing itself into oblivion. Before it could fully disappear into nothingness, it managed one more sentence.

“ **Goodbye, Mr. Freeman.** ”

Gordon’s hands trembled like a dog on the Fourth of July as it vanished completely.

“ **LOOK OUT!** ”

Among all the chaos, Gordon was unable to tell who the shout came from.

He finally inched his head towards the malfunctioning remains of the core, but it was too late.

**A blast of light overcame the room.**


	12. Chapter 12

Gordon awoke to the definition of an unwelcome surprise.

A crowbar pointed towards his neck.

He stirred from his slumber, scanning the weapon to find Bubby at the other end of it.

“ _ You got a lotta ‘splainin’ to do, Freeman. _ ”

“Whuh-... _ huh? _ ”

Gordon backed up further into the wall as he felt the bended end of the crowbar push against his face.

“Don’t try and act dumb with me, Mister. You know  _ exactly  _ what you did.” Bubby hissed.

Confused, Gordon went on a visual safari of the new area he’d found himself in. He recognized the style of the corridor.  _ One of those hallways again _ . He looked to his side, and saw two doors - presumably bathrooms - located to his left. He couldn’t help but notice, though, that the area around him still seemed to glitch and fall apart from occasion.

His eyes bounced back to Bubby’s. “U-um.  _ What _ did I do exactly…?”

This only got him another push of the crowbar.

“Oh yeah. Sure. Go ahead. Keep waxing innocent like that.  _ Let’s see where it gets ya. _ ”

Tommy knocked Bubby out of the way with the bump of a hand, making him remove the crowbar from Gordon’s mug.

“M-Mr. Freeman! Are you alright?!”

Gordon was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Bubby, being the abrasive tough guy he was, didn’t seem to acknowledge the scratches littering his face. Tommy, however, looked like he’d been through a war zone, what with all the splotches, tears in clothing, and the like all over him.

“I-I’m fine, but - Tommy, are  _ you _ okay? God, you don’t look too good - What about the others? Where are they? Are they  _ safe _ ?”

Tommy looked down to his fingers, counting them with the other hand. “Okay, so, I-I’m good, Dr. Coomer is also good, Bubby is… _ Bubby _ , and Benrey…” He cut himself off.

Gordon arched an eyebrow. “What about him?”

The puzzle whiz delivered a long, forlorn sigh. “He’s… uh,  _ r-recovering _ .”

As if on cue, a very Benrey-sounding scream came from the bathroom next to Gordon. That was the only means necessary to get him off his ass and into the doorframe as quickly as he could manage.

He rocketed through the hallway leading up to the lavatory, taking pause when he saw what was in store for him.

Poised over the farthest bathroom sink was who else but Benrey, this time with Dr. Coomer accompanying him on the rim of the mirror. Upon hearing the commotion on Gordon’s behalf, he instantly snatched hold of Coomer and flung himself into the back stall.

Curiously, Gordon tagged along, inching towards the unlocked door, neglecting to knock as he swung it open. There was Benrey again, huddled in a corner in the fetal position, hands obscuring the top of his head.

“Hello, Joshua! Hoping the extra beauty sleep served you well!” Coomer cheered, wiggling his way out of Benrey’s grasp.

Gordon looked down to his feet. He lightly nudged Coomer to the side as he advanced towards Benrey, looking amid a mental collapse.

“Benrey, what is going  _ on _ here?”

Benrey didn’t give a response, only tightening up.

Still feeling disorientated, Gordon bent down. “Look,” he lowered his voice, “if you need help,  _ please _ don’t hesitate to ask-“

“- **I’M** **_FINE_ ** **.** ”

Benrey’s fiery retort made Gordon flinch away. He didn’t know the typically relaxed guard had it in him to be so confrontational.

He  _ also _ didn’t know that Benrey was able to grow black and pink checkered horns, a skill which he unceremoniously revealed by accidentally removing his hands from his helmet.

Gordon sprung to his feet. “ _ Jesus,  _ dude! What the fuck happened to you?!”

“What happened to  _ me?! _ ” Benrey shot back. “What happened to  _ you?! _ It’s because of  _ you _ that all this bad shit happened to me!”

“Woah woah woah woah -  _ wait.  _ When did  _ I  _ turn you into some fuckin’ ...glitch demon from hell?”

“You pulled that fucking resonance cascade thing on me! You did that to  _ all _ of us! Now look at me, bro! You infected me with your grimy little hands! I don’t know what the hell you did to me, but...  _ ugh _ . Jus-...just  **_fuck you._ ** ”

Looking closer at Benrey, Gordon noticed that a tail along the same texture of his horns must’ve come with the unwanted packaged deal.

Tentatively, he wormed a hand closer to him.

“Does it  _ hurt _ ?” 

“I don’t know -  _ does _ it?”

Gordon sighed. “C’mon, dude. Work with me here. You being an asshole isn’t gonna get either of us anywhere.”

At this, Benrey shut himself up.

When Gordon couldn’t get an immediate response out of the snappy security guard, he resorted to just sitting alongside him instead.

“Be honest with me. Are you in any sort of pain? At  _ all _ ? Because the last time I saw the stuff those things are made of,” he said, pointing to the horns, “ _ i-it didn’t end too good.” _

“Head feels funny.” Benrey bluntly mumbled.

Gordon’s eyes extended ever so slightly. “ _Your_ _head feels funny?_ ”

Benrey remained as quiet as a mouse, but he did grant Gordon the security of a single nod.

“H-how so?”

“It feels sorta like...white noise. L-like, it hurts, but...not  _ too _ bad.”

Gordon got up and exited the stall, only to come back just a few minutes later with a wet paper towel in hand. Benrey shivered as he felt Gordon dab the soggy thing around the entry holes of his antlers, with the horns themselves reacting by spouting out a colorful rectangle or two.

“There. That feel any better?”

Benrey’s shoulders tensed. “All you did was put water on my helmet. But, like. I  _ guess.” _

A nervous laugh came from Gordon’s end. “ _ Great _ . Any other fucked up problems going on with you that I should know about?”

Gordon scuttled backwards as Benrey stretched his maw open like a creaky door in a haunted house. Having the entire ‘half skeleton, half human’ gimmick going for him, one half of his mouth was lined with normal, bony, human teeth, but the other side of it looked like it belonged on a horror movie monster, not on some rock-and-roll wannabe. It was adorned with sharp, yellowed fangs, jotting in every direction, bending in ways that would be medically impossible. Looking at him, Gordon couldn’t help but be reminded of a shark. He even could've sworn that he had a few extra rows of teeth, but he couldn’t tell for certain if that was just his eyes playing tricks on him or not.

Coomer, revealing himself from behind Benrey’s helmet, inserted himself into the conversation.

“Hello, Benrey! You  _ might _ want to see a dentist for that!”

“I-I don’t think a dentist could help here. You’re gonna need an  _ exorcist _ , buddy.” Gordon corrected.

Benrey shut his pie hole, giving off a smug smile.

Unable to shake off the shock, Gordon blabbered on. “How in the hell are you even  _ alive?! _ W-with all that sharp shit, your mouth should be a bloody pulp by now! How can you even  _ close _ that thing?!  _ Jesus _ !”

“I dunno.”

“Do you feel any pain, like, around there?”

Benrey took a minute.

“Nope.” He calmly stated.

Gordon scratched his beard, his thoughts metronomed by a rhythmic tap from Benrey’s tail. “....Are you good to go then…?”

“Maybe..?”

That was all Gordon needed to stand back up, allowing Dr. Coomer on his back.

“-W-wait.” Benrey suddenly called out.

Gordon swiveled back around. “What?”

Benrey tapped his feet together, laces untied. “I need help with my shoes, bro.”

This was met with a roll of the eyes. “Can’t you just tie them yourself?”

“Never learned how to. I-it’s a sensory thing.” Benrey said under his breath, sounding a twinge ashamed.

“Fine.” Gordon mumbled, taking hold of one of the laces. “J-Just this once, though.”

He was halfway done with the last one when Benrey, clearly flustered by the whole ordeal, hissed in between clenched teeth, “Tell anyone that this happened and you’re  _ dead. _ ”

“Okay, okay, sheesh.” Gordon said, looping the laces together. “It’s not like I was going to, anyway...”

Gordon had just gotten done tying the final pair of laces into a neat bow when the sound of something scratching viciously made everyone in the stall stop dead in their tracks, which was quickly ushered by the unpleasant sound of something screeching.

“Oh no, Joshua!-“

Coomer was forced to stay silent as a hand slid over his mouth.

The banging, scratching, and screaming only continued as the trio clustered together in the corner.

Out of ideas, Gordon turned to Benrey.

“What do we do _? _ ” He whispered.

Benrey kept his voice down. “I don’t care! Just g-get it away from here!”

“I don’t know what it is! What if it kills me?!”

“Who cares if it does!”

“Haven’t you noticed that I don’t have any weapons, fuckwad?! Even if I wanted to kill it, I couldn’t!”

“Hold that thought.” 

Benrey held up a hand and cycled through holograms of different musical instruments at a rapid-fire pace, finally landing on an electric guitar. He reached his other hand out towards the projection, pulling it out as a tangible item.

“Take this,” he uttered as he casually threw the guitar to Gordon, “this’ll probably be enough to bash it’s brains out.”

“A fucking guitar?!” Gordon yelled in a tone louder than he intended. “Are you  _ kidding  _ me? What the hell am I supposed to do with this?!”

Benrey didn’t have time to argue, indicated by him shoving Gordon towards the locked door. “Fuck if I know! J-just get it!”

Taking several deep breaths in and out, Gordon clenched the handle of the guitar as he flew the door open.

Stood before him was a towering, formless mesh of error messages, missing textures, and bright flashing lights. Upon seeing Gordon before it, it let out a monstrous, booming roar that nearly made him go deaf.

Gordon didn’t take a minute to formulate his plan of attack, jumping on the thing with the not-so-practical weapon in the blink of an eye. He didn’t flinch for a second as he beat the devil out of it, putting a great amount of force behind every strike. The out of tune screaming of the guitar produced with each hit was horrific, but even more so were the yelps of pain from the blob of glitches.

Then, Gordon was sent flying against the back wall of the stall as the amorphous pile gave itself a makeshift appendage, choking Gordon up against the surface with the end of it. Gordon’s hands grabbed a hold of the hand-like limb of the creature, prying at it with everything he had, but all his efforts were for naught. He quickly found himself running out of breath and running low on energy as he writhed around in the thing’s grip.

Suddenly, he was ejected from the chokehold as he heard the beast’s appendage drop to the floor. In front of the now-severed arm, Benrey stood defiantly, adjusting his keyboard to playing position as he blankly watched the mass wretch around in pain. Noticing Coomer climbing aboard Benrey’s helmet, Gordon reached out wordlessly, but to no avail.

As the thing began regenerating piece by piece, Coomer and Benrey exchanged silent nods. In tandem, the two teamed up to attack the creature, with Benrey using the keyboard to hurl bullet-like music notes towards the thing, whilst Coomer summoned the aid of a hammer ten times bigger than himself, hitting the thing over and over again with no signs of stopping.

The relentless screaming of the pained monster only worsened as Tommy skid across the floor, generating a string of glowing orange cubes from the palms of his hands. He joined in with the other two in beating the everloving shit out of this horrid thing as he catapulted each indivisible square at it, with each one leaving behind a nasty-looking cube-shaped impact.

After what felt like hours of the three bashing and gashing away at the thing, a crowbar boomeranged around it, finally putting an end to the miserable blob by slicing it completely in two amidst its hectic rampage.

As the godless creature phased out of reality, Gordon found the strength within himself to raise to his knees. Running his hand against his face, he discovered just how bloodied and bruised the battle had left him.

“Nice job using that guitar, asshole.” Benrey smirked, nudging the electric guitar - now tangled and shattered in half - towards Gordon. 

Gordon, unable to stop himself from shaking, struggled to push himself to his feet, wobbling as he fought to keep balance. “Wow, I-I could’ve died back there, and _this_ is how you treat me? Real nice.”

Carelessly, Benrey dismissed him. “ _ Tch _ . Cringe ass lil’ nae nae Gordos fail death moments of all time, number one will surprise you.”

Gordon blinked.

“What did any of that even mean?”

Gordon then froze up as he felt himself getting hoisted into the air, feeling as if his organs were about to be flung out like coins in a piggy bank. Tommy then released him from the power hug as he stumbled around in a daze. “Gee, M-mr. Freeman! We really thought you were a goner back t-there!”

Bubby retrieved the crowbar, swinging it around boredly as he sauntered Gordon’s way. “As if that would’ve been a bad thing.” He said snarkily.

Coomer popped up from behind Gordon. “How are you feeling, Joshua? Hopefully you weren't shaken up  _ too _ bad after that!”

Gordon panted and heaved, clearly exhausted. “I….I think I need to take a break and log off.”

Benrey’s face drooped. “What…?”

Picking up on the twinge of betrayal in the security guard’s voice, Gordon elaborated. “It won’t be for long, don’t worry, I-....I just need to hit the hay. My eyes are gettin’ real tired.”

“Wait, I-“ 

“G’night, everybody.” Gordon said in between a yawn. “I’ll be back again tomorrow.”

Any attempts Benrey made to prevent Gordon from closing the game out fell on deaf ears as his body went limp.

Snapping back to the real world, Gordon removed the headset from his eyes. So much had happened during such a brief amount of time that it was hard to even begin to process it. Deep in thought, he put the headset - along with its accompanying controllers - back onto the desk, leaning back into his gaming chair with a hearty exhale.

_ That was enough for tonight.  _


	13. Chapter 13

A satisfying  _ blip _ sounded as Tommy put the final cube in its place. Proud of his work, he stepped back to admire the makeshift barricade he’d just constructed. He turned back around to face the rest of the group. His smile flipped upside down.

Gordon showed no signs of stirring.

“Still nothing, huh?”

Coomer shook his head. 

“ _ Still _ nothing.”

Tommy slumped over, joining the group in waiting for Gordon’s eventual return. 

Bubby’s face scrunched up.

“ _ Ugh _ . I hate this guy! Doesn’t he know that some of us have priorities here?!”

Coomer looked at him with a patience that his attitude didn’t warrant. “Well, Bubby, what are _ your _ priorities?”

That certainly caught Bubby off guard. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had actually tried to converse with him in a way that wasn’t lecturing him non-stop for his rancid behavior.

“ _ M-my _ priorities…?” He stuttered, not entirely sure that Dr. Coomer was even talking to him.

“Yes, exactly! What  _ are _ your priorities? For someone who’s clearly in a rush, you don’t really take the time to explain why.”

Bubby bowed his head. “Um. My main priority is to b-become the best racer there is.  _ Duh _ .”

Coomer’s eyes narrowed.

“Bubby, that sounds more like a  _ goal _ than a  _ priority. _ ”

“I-it sure feels like a priority to  _ me _ !”

The tiny scientist flashed the biker an expression that made him feel like a total idiot. He fell quiet, avoiding eye contact with him.

“ _ Nevermind _ .”

“No, no, it’s okay,” the doctor reassured him, “there’s nothing bad with striving to make yourself the best ‘you’ you can be, you know! It’s just that, simply put, pushing yourself to constantly be better than everyone around you can have serious detriments to your health!”

Keeping his eyes off Dr. Coomer, Bubby blankly answered him. “But if I’m not the best, and if I can never be the best, then who am I? I’m unremarkable, that’s what! And that’s the worst thing someone can be, isn’t it? Just another tally mark on the wall?!”

Coomer chimed back, “There’s no need to think of it like that.”

“Oh yeah? How  _ else _ am I supposed to think of it, then?!”

“Well, Bubby, you’re...you’re  _ you! _ ”

Bubby leaned into the wall, a lopsided grin on his face. “Real nice. The whole ‘be yourself’ spiel. Lovely. Tell me something I _ haven’t  _ already heard a million times, doc.”

The walking textbook’s optimistic grin faded. “Bubby, listen to me here.”

The ladder paid the former a glare and nothing more.

“You don’t understand what I’m saying here. I’m not telling you to  _ be yourself- _ “

Bubby shrinked slightly as he felt Dr. Coomer lay one of his tiny hands down on his own.

“-I’m only telling you that yourself is  _ enough. _ ”

A flush crept up Bubby’s face.

“But - but I’m not the best. How am I enough if I’m nowhere near what I want to be?”

“You don’t have to be the best. You don’t even have to be great. All that matters is that you’re trying, and if people can’t see that - then why should you care about them?”

It took Bubby a second to process what exactly Coomer was telling him. Then, after mulling over it a while, Bubby smiled. Not a sarcastic or a sly one - an actual, genuine smile. He reached down, petting Coomer with a sigh.

“Y’know, lil’ guy..? Maybe you’re not so bad after all.”

That Friday afternoon at 3:00, Gordon made the not-very-difficult decision to clock out early. 

Ever since he woke up that morning, he couldn’t get that strange game out of his head. He couldn’t explain why, but he felt like somehow, that alteration of the game was made for his eyes and his eyes only. There were a few brief moments within that day where he considered uninstalling the game and reinstalling it again to get rid of all the rough patches once he got home, if not to have a normal playthrough then for the sake of his own sanity. Ultimately though, he punched out his card, too curious about the rest of its contents to wait any longer. He’d noticed that it’d been unusually dead around the office, anyway. As a precaution, he called up Joshua’s babysitter on the traffic-heavy commute back, instructing her to keep the kid for the weekend.

_ He had to get to the bottom of this. _

Back in the game itself, Benrey nudged his head against Gordon’s HEV suit.

“Ughhh. Wake up, Sleepman….” 

He did it again, conjuring up a light  _ clank  _ from the friction of the surface of the helmet clanging up against that of the armor.

“Pretty cringe that you’re not waking up right now.”

Benrey did it again.

“C’mon, bro.”

Another thud.

All this racket, minimal as it was, was beginning to get on Tommy’s nerves.

“ _ Would you quiet down back there?! _ ”

Benrey looked at him vacantly.

“Huh? What?”

“I-I said,” Tommy gathered himself, “stop doing that. It’s annoying.”

Benrey’s frown arched upwards. “Gee, fine.” He groaned, crossing his arms together in an ‘x’ formation. “I  _ guess _ I’m sorry.”

Tommy pushed a hand against his temple. “Can’t you do literally anything else? I dunno- S-sleep, maybe? Like the other two are?”

To this, Benrey returned his head’s position on Gordon’s shoulder. “Heh.  _ Nah _ . Gotta keep watch on Failman over here.”

The sphere specialist scowled. “All the time, though?”

“ _ All _ the time.”

“That’s….that’s  _ kind  _ of weird, Benrey.”

“Kind of weird to him that he falls asleep on the job. Like some big ol’ fuckin’ baby.” He laughed. “They should call ‘im, uh...G...Gordon  _ Weird _ man. Stupid lil’ Sleepyman.”

Nervously, Tommy looked around. He let out a fake chuckle. “Aha….y-yeah.  _ Right. _ ”

Tommy reached out his hand, using the newly-generated soda that he'd just summoned from thin air as an excuse to avoid conversing further with Benrey.

Why was he acting so  _ weirdly _ ? True, Benrey himself was very prone to strange, almost absurd behavior, but...why the insistence on watching Gordon in particular?

“Say, he’s...he’s not in any  _ danger,  _ is he..?” Tommy pondered.

Benrey’s head shot up. “Oh no. Not at all. Other than being in danger of being called cringe.”

“ _ Hm _ .”  


An hour or two later, Gordon arrived back home.

It was odd not having Joshua around.

Then again, the air of silence was a welcome respite from the not-so-pleasant symphony of the cry of a baby accentuated by the ruckus of toy trucks slamming together.

Still exhausted from the hot summer drive home, Gordon slogged himself down the hallway to his room, hurriedly opening the door. Shifting around in his chair, he propped the 6-can box of Redbull he’d purchased from the convenience store on the way back against one of the desk’s shelves, bending down to pop out a single container of the stuff.

Benrey’s eyes widened, unblinking. He kept his hand firmly on Gordon’s arm as he felt him come back to life.

Gordon’s head bobbed up and down, this way and that, acclimating to the VR setting.

When he at long last came to, he discovered Benrey’s bony hand resting almost gingerly upon him.

“Benrey, why-why is your  _ hand _ on me?” He groggily remarked.

Coldly, Benrey revoked the gesture of affection, still staring dead-eyed at Gordon.

“Y...You came back.” He expressed, in a tone that sounded something like... _ surprise _ ?

Gordon took a moment to readjust the straps on his headset, the behavior mirroring in the game world to him simply fussing with his glasses. “Whuh-what?”

That seemed to make Benrey come out of whatever strange trance he placed himself under.

“O-oh. Yeah. Duh. Of course you would. T-That’s because, you- ya like me, don’t you, gay lil’ stinky Feetman? Wish you could make out with me, huh?“

Gordon gave him a death stare.

“I _wish_ you would drop dead _._ ”

Whilst the two were bickering amongst one another, out from the seams of the tiles came that goddamn black and blue box from earlier. This only came to attention when Gordon, exasperated from the argument, looked away, only to see that thing that had almost gotten him killed in the corner of his eye. He felt his skeleton crawl at the edge of his skin.

“You  _ fucker _ -“

Then, it let out a phrase so loud that it nearly left imprints of the group on the wall.

“ **RISE AND SHINE, MR. FREEMAN.** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! It’s me again!
> 
> I saw a few concerns on the last chapter about that being the end of this fic. Good news! It’s not! It’s so far from being the end, in fact! I still have so many more concepts to explore and so much more to write for this, so please stay tuned for more updates! :D


	14. Chapter 14

“ **_WHAT THE FUCK?!_ ** ”

If the rattle of the box hadn’t forced everyone awake already, then Gordon’s exclamation certainly did.

At this, the text box only cackled.

“Well, well, well, there’s no need for such outrage, Mr. Freeman!”

Gordon recoiled as the sinister square landed its pointer directly in the middle of his eyebrows. As the message drew closer, he was essentially trapped as it flew right up in his face.

“ _ We’re all friends here…!” _

Thankfully, Gordon managed to wrestle the cursor off.

“Friends?” He yelled, rising up. “ ** _FRIENDS?!_** You almost killed everyone I care about! Thanks to you, Benrey’s full of some fuckin’ who-knows-what bullshit radiation - n-not that I _care_ about him - and now you’re gonna go and act all buddy-buddy about it? Nuh-uh. No. _Not_ happening.”

The tacked-on remark made Benrey smirk.

The GUI swirled around, clearly not taking Gordon’s concerns seriously. “Oh, please! That whole resonance cascade situation? That was just  _ prep! _ ”

Bubby raised a clenched fist. “Prep for what? To kill us  _ again? _ ”

“No, no, no! You see, all that was just to ensure that you’d be ready for what comes next!” It chimed cheerily.

Gordon shot back, feeling the veins in his neck pop out. “What do you mean ‘what comes next’?! You’ve just started the end of the world! There  _ is _ no ‘next’!”

The panel gave a wave of the cursor. “Mr. Freeman, Mr. Freeman… that line of thinking isn’t going to get anyone anywhere, now is it? As a wise man once said, the end of a book is just the beginning!”

“ **THAT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE!** ”

“It doesn’t have to! I’m only here to help!”

Tommy wasn’t afraid to give his two cents on the matter.

“How is nearly k-killing us  _ helping? _ ”

“U-um. Well, surviving a near-death experience is most certainly something to spice up your resume!”

Gordon’s hands wavered around his head. “Listen. Are you here to kill us or not?”

“No. Like I said, I only want to help you. I’m being honest with you here.”

Benrey sauntered forwards.

“Looks kinda sketchy to me, bro.”

As much as he hated Benrey’s guts, he had to agree with him on that. “ _ Do tell. _ ”

“Please, Mr. Freeman. Trust me on this.”

The white-haired biker began revving up to punch this thing. “The only thing I trust you on is that you’re going to try and throw us 6 feet under!”

It was a miracle that Bubby didn’t choke on the cursor the GUI momentarily lodged in his throat.

“Mr. Freeman, I swear on my motherboards that, at least from now on, I have nothing but good intentions for you. I’ll even be extra kind to you on your journeys! I promise it!”   
  


Tommy locked the improvised cage with a  _ click. _

“I-I’m not bad! I’m not bad! I  _ swear _ I’m not bad!” The thing sputtered as it thrashed about its claustrophobic prison.

Dr. Coomer marched around the perimeter of the enclosure. 

“And how exactly can we  _ trust _ you?” He asserted, facing the miserable-looking text box.

The audio waves displayed on it contorted into a frown. “Well, I know this sounds dubious - b-but you’ll just have to! Please! Pretty please?”

As if by magic, the box suddenly felt itself - along with its cage - being hoisted up into the air. Through the bars, it saw Bubby’s sunglasses come into view. Then, dangling the prison over one of his hands, Bubby flicked the hand under it back, revealing a ball of fire.

“I’ll believe it when you’re  _ dead _ .” He cautioned, his fire-bearing hand closing in on it.

A  _ clang _ resonated throughout the room as the enclosure flew across the floor.

“Bubby, what is your  _ deal?! _ ” Gordon rebuked, tackling Bubby to the ground. “You can’t just  _ kill _ it!”

“Why not? It almost did the same thing to us!” Bubby barked back, shoving Gordon’s body off of him.

“What if it - oh, I dunno - has  _ valuable information _ ? Believe me, I wanna smash this thing to bits as much as you do, but you can’t just pull this shit whenever you feel like it! It could be of genuine use to us! Who  _ knows  _ what it knows?!”

Nonchalantly, Benrey strolled up to the restrained menace sprawled out in its pitiful container. Bending down to its level, he carelessly propped it back up. Still recovering from the mix-up, it sparked and jittered.

“Kinda cringe.”

“K...kind of  _ what?” _

Benrey laid down on the floor, turning over to reveal the horns sticking out of his helmet. “Look what you did to me, bro. Not very epic of you.”

The box bent downwards, then rose to face the punk rock enthusiast. “How many times can I say that I’m sorry here? Here, I’ll do it again -  _ I’m sorry _ . Now, can you please let me out of this pesky cage here? I-I’ll pay you back!”

A shrug. “Eh. That’s up for Feetman here to decide.”

Speaking of Gordon, there he came, stomping near the crate. With a sigh, he too - along with Tommy and Coomer - bent down within eye’s view of the bars. Wriggling around in place, Gordon began speaking to the thing.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll give you an ultimatum here.”

“Y-yes? I’m listening.”

“Tell us a good reason why we  _ shouldn’t _ kill you.”

The floating panel backed up. “ _ U-um _ .”

It turned to Tommy, who, too, wasn’t messing around, as he gave it a threatening glare, tossing an orange cube in the air and catching it in his hands like a baseball player about to pitch.

“ _ Ahem _ .” It started to explain, miming clearing its throat. “W-well. I’ve never introduced myself, h-have I? That’s... _ rude  _ of me - anyway. Greetings. You can call me G.”

Gordon’s eyes narrowed.

It went on. “You see, as you could probably tell, I know the workings of Black Mesa like the back of my hand. I-I can even help you navigate your way around here, if you‘d so like!”

“M-hm. Ok. That’s great and all. But do you know how to  _ undo _ whatever the hell you’ve just done or not? Because if you don’t, then why should we even bother with your sorry ass?”

“Yes! Yes, I do, actually! All you have to do is make your way to the Lambda Labs, a-and enter the portal there!”

Gordon repositioned himself, scratching the side of his head. “ _ The Lambda Labs, The Lambda Labs… _ ” He hushedly wondered aloud. “I have  _ no _ idea where that is.”

G perked up. “See! That’s exactly why you need me! How else would you be able to get there?”

Gordon thought over it a bit, pacing around the room a few times before circling back to the cage.

“Alright. I’ve made up my mind.”

All eyes were on him.

“You’re coming with us.”

The GUI bounced around in its cage, rattling its bars. “ _ Really?! _ Thank you so much, Mr. Freeman-“

G’s excitement was halted. “-With  _ one _ exception. You are to stay in that cage at  _ all times _ .”

“B-but how am I supposed to give you directions?”

Tommy piped in. “W-well, G, you could just….just  _ say _ them?”

“Tommy, that is an  _ excellent _ idea!” Dr. Coomer replied.

Gordon gave a thumbs-up. “Yeah. Sounds cool to me. Just to check - is everyone good with that?”

Bubby gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “As long as he doesn’t try shit...I  _ guess _ .”

“Whatever’s fine with you is fine by me.” Benrey said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

Gordon had his hands on his hips. “Welp, G. Whether I want it or not - which I  _ really _ don’t - looks like we’re kinda stuck with you now.”

The eccentric popup gave a courteous bow. “Thank you, Mr. Freeman! Even though you locked me up inside a primitive enclosure and threatened my life multiple times, I can guarantee that you  _ won’t _ regret this!”

Not having to exert too much energy, Gordon swiped G’s cage up by its handle.

“Yeah.  _ I can only hope I won’t. _ ”


	15. Chapter 15

It’d felt like it had been hours since Tommy had first put G in that cage.

Gordon let his posture slump as the sound of the imprisoned GUI yapping at him became the only thing filling the airwaves.

Finally, after centuries and eternities of G pushing them along, the group came across a room that, needless to say, piqued their collective interests.

“Mr. Freeman, i-it’s pitch black in here! It’s like a dark, deep dark, pitch black, black as vantablack! It’s so dark! It’s like a, like a, uh...like a cold winter’s night on a chilly Christmas Eve up in this bitch, Mr. Freeman! It’s _evil_!” Noted Tommy, pressing his face up against the glass panel of the door.

Gordon’s eyes looked like they were about to bulge straight out of his head.

“L-like a void, Tommy?”

He seemed to deliberate for a second there, before letting out a hurried “ _Yeah._ ”

That made the entire team rush towards that door, cramping together just to get a look at what Tommy had described.

_He wasn’t playing around_.

“Wow, kid, you ….you weren’t kidding.” Gordon commented, glimpsing around the room. If you could even call it that.

The room itself looked, as Gordon had said, a _literal_ void.

“Looks a bit shit.” Benrey added.

Gordon hefted up the cage, allowing for the creature inside to scope out the scene. “Hey, uh, G? Are you sure this is the right path?” 

It’s monitor switched to display two cartoony pairs of eyes. Using its new peripherals, its pupils bounced around the borders of its eyes this way and that. It returned to look up at Gordon.

“Affirmative!”

Remembering how easily Benrey was able to traverse the invisible staircase, he knowingly looked his way, eliciting a roll of the eyes from the metalhead. “Alright, alright, I get it. Everyone, out of the way. Benrey’s comin’ through.”

Benrey squeezed his way through the small gathering, leaving them up against the surrounding walls. He tugged the door handle, opening it with a click.

Without much flair, he effortlessly made his first few baby steps into the oppressive nothingness. As he retraced his steps, tapping his feet up and down as an extra measure, he shifted his head back to the corridor.

“Hello, Benrey!”

Coomer’s sweet voice echoed throughout the exposed space.

“...Hi.”

“Is this platforming up to code?” Coomer inquired.

Benrey looked down at the ground. “Seems like it, bro.”

Within an instant, as if by magic, the lights of the room came to life. With this, it was revealed that the surface Benrey was standing on was anything _but_ safe.

The dread began to eat away at Gordon as it came to light what Benrey was actually on top of. That same pattern that adorned his horns and trickled down his tail. The same shit that had almost killed Dr. Coomer just by touching it. It took the form of a fluid as it’d done before, but this time, it didn’t resemble honey, or sap, or anything close to that. What Benrey had been traversing this whole time was the glitched out, fucked-up equivalent of _lava._

“U-uh, _Benrey…_?” Gordon’s last vowel stretched on as he looked at Benrey, then at the searing liquid.

“What’s the matter, Feetman? Afraid of the Mountain Dew river?”

“H-How are you standing on top of that?”

Benrey unenthusiastically danced in place. “Bro, c’mon. I’m a lil’ magic man. I can do _anything._ ”

Bubby assumed the role of Captain Obvious.

“ _That doesn’t look too good_.”

Coomer rustled his head out of Bubby’s pocket. “I feel inclined to agree, Bubby!”

Upon closer inspection, Gordon found that the room was set up in such a way where, located on each end of the river of certain death, lay a single platform, no more than 15 or 20 feet in width each. Feeling uneasy about this, he turned his attention once more to Benrey.

“Dude? Hey? Do you have a plan for how we’re gonna get across this? C-cause you better come up with one _quick._ And I don’t think we can just walk across this like last time, right?”

Benrey interjected. “What? Course I do, Gourds. I’m a magic man with a _plan._ All I have to do is, uh……”

He went quiet.

“I guess I’ll just have to carry each one of you across one by one.”

Gordon felt a scowl span his face. “Oh, no. I am _NOT_ trusting you with holding me. Are you - are you _crazy?!_ ”

To this, Benrey coyly parroted Gordon’s refusal, miming a mouth with his balled fist and thumb. 

“Blah blah blah, look at me, I’m Mr. Gordon Feetman! Look at me with my PHD! I’m so important! I don’t trust Benrey with carrying me because I’m a total dumbass and also because that’s like, _gay_ or some shit, even if it’s a life or death situation and there’s no other option blah blah blah…”

Gordon was on the brink of pulling his own scalp out. “ **FINE. FINE. I’LL DO IT.** J-just shut up about it already and please _, for the love of god,_ make it quick.”

Much to his dismay, Gordon was last in line to be totted off, as Benrey, a smug expression tied tightly onto his face like his life depended on it, paced his way towards the armor-clad man.

“Saving the best for last, huh, Gordon Beefman?”

“Ugh. Call me that again and you’ll be on my _permanent_ _hitlist_.” He spat out, refusing to even look at the half-decaying man.

Gordon was under the perception that, with shorter stature and comparably weaker frame, and _especially_ factoring in the fact that he was two notches away from being nothing more than skull and bones, there was no way that Benrey would be able to so much as lift a single foot of his off the ground.

Lo and behold, though, to his utter shock, he found himself propped up firmly within Benrey’s grasp. He didn’t show a single sign of a struggle, much to Gordon’s surprise. With that, Benrey turned himself - and Gordon - towards their destination.

Gordon continued declining Benrey the privilege of eye contact. As Benrey led him along, he took note of how much slower he was with him compared to when he’d been transporting the others across.

“What’s taking you so long?” Gordon snapped.

“Nice view down there.”

“I-...I’m _not_ talking to you, man.”

“What’s the matter, Babyman? Don’t like being held?”

Gordon’s tone became more hostile. “ _I said_ _I’m not talking to you_!”

“Damn, you’re cute when you’re mad.”

Gordon decided then and there that it’d be better to just shut his yapper than to fuel the fire.

A laugh. “I’m kidding. I’m just _joking_.”

Silence.

“I- _I actually hate your bod_.” Benrey insisted.

Gordon was hit with the biggest wave of relief as Benrey finally let him step foot on the metal surface, only to be confronted with a whole new source of panic.

As he rejoined the rest of the group, he realized that Bubby had turned as white as a ghost, his shaking hands frantically searching for something unknown to Gordon in the pockets of his bomber jacket. The other two bore similarly worried expressions as they wordlessly looked on. Raising an eyebrow, Gordon, still not quite clued in as to what exactly happened, tapped Bubby on the shoulder.

“ _Bubby_..?”

At this, the biker spun around, sweat dripping down his forehead.

“Gordon, I-it’s the Doc.”

“Yeah? What about him-“

“ **I can’t find him.** ”

In a horrified state, Gordon stumbled back. “YOU _WHAT_?!”

“I don’t know what happened to him!” Bubby admitted shamefully like he’d just lost a pet. “One second, he’s in my pocket, the next, h-he’s nowhere to be seen!”

Gordon buried his glasses in his hand. 

“Oh, _god,_ Bubby, please don’t tell me that he’s in _there_.” He painfully groaned, motioning towards the pit of endless radiation. 

A single “Uh.. _guys?_ ” came from Benrey’s end.

“You _might_ wanna check this out.”

Gordon peered over the edge of the platform. In the area that Benrey had pointed out, a formation of bubbles cracked through the surface, gradually gaining both in speed and in number. As the bubbles peaked to the hundreds, the entity resurfaced.

“Ah! _There_ you are!” Bubby’s typically harsh voice was coated with a globule of affection. Bending a knee, he welcomed back the small figure with open arms. “You sure gave everyone a scare, ya lil’ rascal.”

No matter how much Bubby gestured for the thing to hurry along, it wouldn’t budge. Intrigued, Gordon bent down.

Whatever waded in the toxic waste in front of them certainly _looked_ like Dr. Coomer, yes, but there were enough flaws and inaccuracies to give Gordon an uneasy feeling. His bright, neon colors were visibly desaturated, as if he’d been run through a sepia tone filter in a photo editing program. The cloth-like material that made up his lab coat looked tattered, adorned with animalistic scratches and blemishes. His cotton ball-esque hair was now shaped into spikes. Most tellingly, though, where cartoony, pie slice pupils once bounced around happily, there was instead a white, glossed-over texture to his eyes, complete with pink and red veins popping out from the bottom of each one.

Frustrated, Bubby mumbled an encyclopedia of curse words under his breath. “Why won’t he listen?”

“U-um,” Tommy stammered, “I don-I don’t think that’s him..”

Benrey teetered near the edge, not at all seeming to take his mortality into consideration. “I think he’s kind of fucked up.”

Gordon’s eyes flickered with suspicion. “Dr. Coomer, is that you? A-are you there?”

With that, Dr. Coomer dreamily replied, his words slanted and uneven like a robot without a battery. “Hello, _J-jish-jo-j_...Hello Joshua!”

“Oh, shit. Uh. You don’t sound so good there, pal.”

Coomer’s words turned to sludge. “I d-d-don’t - **HELLO** \- sound so go-good?” 

The scientist let out a distorted chuckle, which was enough to make the team take a collective step or two back.

“ **I-I’ve never felt better…!”**

In the crack of a whip, the lookalike rocketed towards the roof, erupting under the rising of it’s true form.

As the gigantic beast struggled against the tide of the missing texture maelstrom, it came to light just how massive this leviathan was.

It was not composed of skin, muscle, scales, or bone. Instead, what glued together its shambling, barely tangible form was thousands, if not _millions_ of duplicates of the uncanny-looking replicate Coomer the group had seen only moments before. All of them worked in tandem to form the shape of a singular, colossal rendition of the kindly doctor. As it let out a bellowing “ **HELLO, JOSHUA**!” that bounced off every wall, a health bar appeared over its head.

Gordon stood there, slack-jawed.

“D...does anyone have a _plan_!?” He sputtered with gaining intensity as it stomped closer.

Tommy rightfully sounded scared for his life, yet through it all, he still managed to stay optimistic. “Maybe he’s a _nice_ monster!”

His hopes were dashed as it formed a crater in the platform where Gordon had been standing only seconds before with a single slam of the hand.

“Okay, maybe _not_.”

A lightbulb went off in Gordon’s head as he ran around the limited space the metal flooring provided. “Wait! There’s a health bar there, right? T-that means we can probably defeat him!”

Bubby shot back a concerned “Yeah, but will he _live_ if we do?!”

“I don’t know,” Gordon huffed, “but it’s worth a shot!”

The sound of metal on metal sounded through the perimeter. Among all the ruckus, Benrey had dropped G’s cage, which had been firmly sandwiched between his arms. Struggling against its restraints, G managed to use its 2D form to its advantage, slipping through the iron bars just before the giant Dr. Coomer could turn it into roadkill. 

“That’s the plan? Just get rid of it, Mr. Freeman?” It asked, quickly swerving Gordon’s way, eliciting a hurried nod from the armor-clad man. 

That was all G needed to send itself flying towards the monster, maximizing its size like a parachute being released. It’s plan to restrain the creature worked, as it slammed its face against a wall leaving behind a large crack and making a considerable dent in its health, although it was nowhere near being defeated. “Don’t just stand there!” G barked at the four others as it held the fiend in its square-shaped grasp. “ _Go!_ Do something!”

In response, Benrey turned to face his group of friends. “Gordon, you stay here. Me, Tommy, and Bubby will handle the real blisterin’ here.”

“ _What_?”

“You don’t got a weapon, dumbass. How are you gonna do anything?” He scoffed, as if it was common knowledge.

“Can’t you just give me -“ A sigh. “Can’t I just have an instrument?”

“Not until you say the magic word, bro.”

“Benrey, this is a life-threatening situatio-“

“ _Ahem._ Magic word?”

Gordon rolled his eyes. “May I _please_ have an instrument?”

In the blink of an eye, he found a keytar nestled between the gaps of his fingers. He looked towards Benrey as he gestured for him to grab his hand. Left with no other choice, he - along with the other remaining members of the team - obliged.

Benrey let out a death metal-esque screech, forming a bridge out of his strange, gravity-defying music notes. At its formation, he immediately hopped onto it, sliding across it like a skateboarder on the guide rail of a staircase. 

“Woah!” Tommy exclaimed, landing on the squirming surface of the monster. “We were like two peas in a big ol’ boba straw!” 

He hunched over as he was met with a pat on the back by Gordon. “Great. Okay - Focus here, kid, focus.”

“Gotchya, Mr. Freeman!” 

Tommy joined the brawl, slinging cubes this way and that against the creature, slowly chipping away at its HP. Benrey had begun the perilous hike up the thing towards its head, tasseling with the occasional grabbing hand of one of its many components. Bubby only continued the beat down by launching fireball after fireball at the thing barely resembling his newest friend. Gordon had taken a more chaotic approach, slamming the thing with the retro weapon whenever need be.

Then, just when they’d torn away at half of its health, those fighting the good fight went tumbling down back onto the cold, hard ground. The boss they’d been battling against shook them off like ants. G was no longer holding it back, to their dismay, as it had been given the same exact treatment as them. 

“Ah, _fuck_.” Tommy cursed, rubbing a bump the Coomer beast left on his head. “What do we do now, Mr. Freeman?”

Gordon blinked back tears of pain as he strained to turn to Bubby. “Y-you.”

“Me?” Bubby’s eyes opened wide. “W-what about me?”

Bubby felt Gordon’s hands on his shoulders. “You know how to make those...fucking- the projectile things!”

“My _fireballs_?”

“Yes! Those! G-go do that, why don’t you? Me ‘n’ the rest will look for an exit - there’s _gotta_ be one around here.”

As Bubby went with the plan Gordon had proposed, he followed up on searching for a ladder, a staircase, a rope - anything to get them out of there.

“Look, Mr. Freeman! I’ve found something.” G jittered as it panned towards a wall, it’s form glitching slightly under the damage it’d just withstood.

It had, indeed, followed up on its claim, presenting an iron-bar ladder that led to a door located high up on the wall, of which it flew on top of immediately without taking the others into account.

Feeling as if he was going to rip apart at the seams, Gordon pressed on, huffing and puffing as he voyaged up the bars, with each step uneven, each new grip slippery. He’d made it about half the way up when he heard the sounds of the others following beneath him. He couldn’t even muster the strength to check if everyone was there. The sound of Tommy’s voice saying something about how close they were to killing it came through, but it didn’t touch his mind. 

Then, in the blink of an eye, Gordon found himself in the grasp of the hivemind of horrifying clones. Unlike the last time when he’d found himself in a position like this, he didn’t have it in him to fight back. By now it felt like it was just blurring together - the beast, the heat of the liquid simmering below him, the cacophony of screaming, the sound of Benrey calling his name and shouting expletives at the eldritch being as he furiously stomped closer. Gordon couldn’t even notice the difference between the atmosphere as the mindless creature released him, letting himself free-fall towards the mass of missing textures. 

What he _did_ feel was the burning sensation.

As the shock set in, he forced his head to resurface above the liquid, waving his arms recklessly as he cried out for help. It didn’t take long for Benrey to come rushing to his side, using his abilities to stand above the perilous liquid and grab onto Gordon’s open hand, maneuvering backwards clumsily. No matter how many times he tried to release him from this hellish glitchy prison, though, Benrey just couldn’t seem to pull Gordon out. Refusing to give up, Benrey grabbed a hold of his own forearm and tugged it with everything he had, but it still wasn’t enough. It was almost as if something was weighing Gordon down, and he couldn’t tell what. Realizing the futility of his rescue efforts, he began crying.

“C-c’mon, Gordon.” Benrey gasped, keeping up his endeavor, although he was losing hope by the second. “You can do it. Yh-..you’re _strong_.”

It took everything in Gordon’s body to keep his head level and his hand entangled with Benrey’s. Noticing Benrey’s complete lack of sarcasm and failure to call him any demeaning names took him very off guard, to say the least. As he locked eyes with him, it hit him just how devastated he was - his hastily-applied black eyeshadow running down his cheeks, his mouth atremble, the heaviness behind his crimson red pupils.

“Gordon, please. Y-you’re doing so good. You can do this. Please. P- _Please_.”

Even though Gordon felt like his entire body was going up in flames and melting into nothingness, seeing Benrey collapse and desperately caress his hand against his face... _that_ was what really hurt him the most.

Benrey became completely incomprehensible as he held Gordon’s hand against his makeup-smudged cheek, using his unoccupied one to shakily play with his hair. Unlike before, Gordon didn’t refuse the gesture of affection. This time, he welcomed it, like he was greeting an old friend.

Gordon had never seen Benrey like this, and internally, he feared the likely possibility that he was never even going to see him again.

Suddenly, Gordon felt himself sink further.

“B-Benrey-“ He yelped in between vain attempts to keep his mouth from going under. 

Benrey’s eyes shook open, noting the abrupt disappearance of Gordon’s palm.

Gordon now found both of the guard’s hands stiffly planted against the two sides of his head. He pulled and pulled, but nothing happened. All the movement only made him sink lower, if anything.

“Gordon, please! Please hang on, f-fuck! Please, I-“

He flinched slightly as Benrey’s twitching thumbs grazed the bottom of his eyelids and slid downwards, trying to dampen the tears away.

Benrey sounded like he was choking on his words, sounding like he was about to confess to a deep, inner secret. “Gordie, I..I-“

That was all Benrey could say before Gordon watched on helplessly as the senseless creature slammed him against the wall, sounding out a _THUD._

The last thing Gordon saw before the liquid completely engulfed him was Benrey’s helmet cracking in two as he hit the ground hard, and the last thing he heard was a deathly shrill scream.


	16. Chapter 16

_Nothing left to do now._

That line echoed in Gordon’s brain as he lay suspended in a dreamily intoxicating black expanse.

He didn’t know where he was.

_It’s not like it mattered_.

_It’s just a game._

_None of it is real_.

But..it _felt_ real.

So, so real.

The feeling of an inferno raging against his skin had long since subsided. Either he’d grown completely numb to the pain, or he’d been flung to a different plane on the map entirely.

He didn’t really care which was true anymore.

Gordon had long since accepted his fate, hands clasped in front of his chest like a corpse in a coffin.

Was he alive? Was he dead? Would it even matter? Why shouldn’t the world stop turning? Why would the universe cater to his needs at all?

He’s just one out of a hundred million.

But..maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was.

_Why would it make any difference?_

Distant and cold, he closed his eyes.

It’s not like there’s anything to see when you’re floating in the void.

Even though his body remained motionless, his thoughts were anything but.

No matter how many times he’d try to dismiss the whole experience as just another game on his PC - a buggy one at that - he couldn’t stop thinking about Benrey.

He couldn’t stop thinking about his eyes, and how despairing they were.

His voice.

The way he held him.

How afraid he was.

Why was he so concerned about him, after all?

Didn’t he _hate_ him?

Then, Gordon thought about what he was about to say right before he went under.

The conspiratorial tone he’d used in that instance had him thinking that he was about to confess something that he’d been hiding deep inside himself, a phrase stuffed away in the back of his voice box for an eternity, something he wouldn’t admit had the circumstances been less dire.

‘I’m sorry’?

‘ _I love you_ ’?

Thinking of the ladder answer made Gordon feel almost nauseous. Not out of disgust, but how if that’s what he meant, then _that’s_ what it took for him to get it out of his system.

He thought of how real it felt when his hands made contact with his face, how sincere his expression was when he wiped his tears away.

It was the most physical contact he’d had with anyone in such a long time.

He couldn’t remember the last occasion someone had held him that gingerly, doing their best to comfort him.

He’d been so alone, and it took a fucking _game_ to realize how much he pined for someone - _anyone_ to listen to his pleas. For someone to just hold him, touch him, to have his presence in this vast, meaningless universe acknowledged and confirmed by at least one person. To be known by _one_ person who actually cared for him. To be validated, even in the smallest capacity, by _someone._

_God_.

As he came to that depressing realization, he felt a deep, human need to cry, but alas, his ability to sob had long since been exhausted.

What had even _become_ of Benrey, now that he thought about it? From the last he’d seen of the poor guy, he looked to be injured pretty badly. It takes something particularly nasty to just shatter a helmet like that.

He couldn’t believe he was saying this, even internally to himself where no soul, living or not, could hear his cries, but he _hoped_ he was okay.

Fuck, if Benrey ended up dying thinking that he’d followed a similar fate...Jesus, he didn’t know what he’d do then. He couldn’t even begin to fathom it.

He didn’t want to think about the possibilities or likelihood of that outcome, but unfortunately for him, now that it graced his mind, it was all that he could think about.

The way Benrey slumped over like that, the way he _screamed_...

A shiver cascaded down his spine. It was making him sick.

For the sake of his own mental health, he knew he had to find something else to think about.

The solution to his silent concerns came in the form of the bubbles that he breathed out from his nose.

It was almost as if he was breathing underwater, like a snorkeler adrift in the Keys, yet somehow, he didn’t feel his fingers prune or his skin go cold with the feel of the waves crashing against him, gentle as they may be.

There were no waves, and there was no seabed.

It was just him, and the frigid, featureless expanse.

All the underwater imagery made Gordon harken back to a time when he was far younger, back to when he didn’t worry about taxes or securing his office job position or any of the anchors adulthood carried with its ugly name.

It was the summer of 1998. Gordon was only 5 years old back then.

He’d been visiting that same summer camp his family had been hauling him off to for the past 2 years, and the same one they’d continue to fair him off to for many years to come.

He remembered the joy that sparked in his eyes when the camp counsellors told him he’d grown old enough to enter the pool, albeit with the exception being that he _had_ to stay in the shallow part.

The dares of the older kids - who’d be greatly admired at that young, innocent period of his life - convinced him otherwise.

When the camp’s only lifeguard went off duty, the teenagers dared Gordon, bidding higher and higher for him to take a plunge in the deep end. Eventually, he took the bait.

One minute in the deep end equals a free five dollars.

When you’re that young, getting any amount of money whatsoever gives you a high that makes you feel invincible, so realistically, what else was Gordon to do? _Not_ take the offer?

The regret kicked in as soon as he realized that his feet no longer touched the floor as he was so comfortably used to.

As the horror of weightlessness kicked in, he kicked and clawed, but no matter how hard he fought against the chlorine-infested water, he couldn’t find a way back to the surface.

It was a miracle that the lifeguard came back in time.

Needless to say, Gordon did not get his promised five dollars that day.

Remove the whole lifeguard savior aspect and make the pool a bottomless pit of unseeable liquid, and that’s essentially how Gordon felt.

To his surprise, though, it wasn’t as bottomless as he previously presumed.

_Hands._

A pair of tiny hands grabbed Gordon’s face, and, to his mute horror, began to pull him closer. They’d latched onto his head in a way that made it impossible to look at exactly what they were pulling him into. 

He wanted to scream, but somehow, he couldn’t.

“Wake up..!” A disembodied voice whispered teasingly.

More hands shot out, hooking onto his limbs and repeating the same line as they forced him into a sea of more and more hands.

“Wake up. Wake up. _Wake up_.”

It began sounding less like mockery, and more of a demand.

Gordon, fighting against them, managed to get one true glimpse at precisely what they were pulling him into before he completely blacked out in the embrace of the countless little fingers.

His eyes became as wide as a car’s headlights on an August’s night drive home.

A wall. _A wall composed entirely of hands._

Instantaneously, Gordon‘s ability to breathe slipped away.

“ **_WAKE UP._ **”


	17. Chapter 17

“ **_Wake up!_ **”

Gordon felt his entire body fighting against him as he lunged himself out of the pool of water, his neck hoisting his head into the breathable air with the same weight as a ball and chain.

As soon as he rose up, he took a cartoonishly long breath, then slammed his chest with his fist over and over again as he expelled a black and purple mess from his lungs. With each slight movement, his body shivered, it being unable to find a happy medium between the freezing liquid void and the new, room-temperature area he’d found himself in - the jolt between the two happened so briskly, it was almost hypothermic.

When he’d emptied himself of most of the sickening solution enough for his airways to function, he took a reality check.

He found himself in yet another one of Black Mesa’s miscellaneous rooms. This one, notably, was fitted with monitors galore. Though his vision was blurred, he could tell just by the darkness illuminated by the countless screens that lined the place that it logically had to be used for some sort of security purpose.

It was already giving him a headache.

Then, an aching of an entirely different breed hit him like a ton of bricks.

Something, or someone, _slapping_ him.

“Ow!” He squealed, rubbing his cheek.

Meeting eye contact with his attacker, he was left stunned and confused.

Perched on top of his lap with an open palm was a figure that resembled something straight out of an anime.

He recognized the small, beret-clad individual on sight.

“ **_Forzen?!_ **”

This was only met with another fresh order of a knuckle sandwich.

The chibi-style hacker drew back his clenched fist, releasing an animalistic growl.

“You ghosted me!”

Another punch.

“ _Y-you fucking ASSHOLE!_ ”

All it took Gordon to subdue the tiny menace was a shove of the palm, though Forzen sure wasn’t letting that stop him as he swung his arms in circles frantically.

“Woah, woah, woah. Holy _shit_. Okay. C-calm down-“

“ **I HATE YOU! FUCK YOU! GO TO** **_HELL_ ** **!** ”

Gordon only pushed him back further.

“Wait, you’re that one guy from t-“

Becoming aware of how pitiful the whole scenario was for him, he lowered his voice.

“ _From the -_ ahem - _f-from the free dating game, right?_ ”

“Uh, _duh_ . Who _else_ would I be, Einstein?!” Forzen hissed, bearing his pointy teeth.

Gordon’s eyes flung around the room, looking for some excuse to escape. No avail.

Great. He knew he shouldn’t have downloaded that.

“...what are you doing here, then?” He mouthed quietly, releasing the dreamy anime boy from his grip.

Forzen puffed out his chest. “I’m here to kick your ass! Y-yeah! You’re not gonna know what _hit_ you!” He smirked, getting into a boxer stance, shifting his weight around constantly. Considering that he was only two feet tall, it wasn’t a very imposing sight to say the least.

Gordon eyed down the door.

“ _Sure_. Good luck with that.” Gordon exhaled sarcastically, making his way to the exit.

Just before his hand wrapped around the handle, he felt something tangle around himself, and before he could ask what on earth was happening, the back of his head had a skirmish with the ground.

Briskly, he found himself being dragged, drawing closer and closer to exactly what he was trying to outrun.

With an expression that screamed _‘you are such a fucking idiot’_ , Forzen raised the grappling hook gun.

“You didn’t think you could get away _that_ easily, did you?” He taunted.

Gordon snapped back instantly, writhing against the ropes. “What’s wrong with you?! _What_ _do you want from me_?!”

Forzen defiantly stomped a foot on Gordon’s back, furthering his aim of restraining him.

“What I want from you,” he said in that cutesty exaggerated voice of his, pushing the sole of his shoe deeper into the back of Gordon’s suit for emphasis, “is _answers_.”

“.... _Answers_?”

The invader pulled out a lollipop from his vest pocket, sticking it in his mouth like he was a cowboy in the bygone days of the Wild West sucking on hay. “Two questions. Why did you fucking ghost me like a total loser, and _why_ did you have to screw everything up?”

Gordon took a moment to pause.

“Why did _I_ screw everything up? Wuh-“

A kick to the back. Forzen’s stance only intensified.

“Do you really think you can pull that with me? You _really_ think you can pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, huh?”

Sweat rained down Gordon’s half-cracked glasses as Forzen aimed the sharp edge of the hook a few inches away from his neck. 

“ **_You really think that’ll fool me, Gordon-kun?_ ** _”_

“N-no, you don’t - you don’t understand. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I _don’t_.”

Whatever Gordon had pulled with how he phrased that, it was enough to make Forzen reconsider cutting his life short.

“So you really _don’t_ know about the pink and black junk?” He scolded, pulling his weapon back. “You have _no_ idea how that got there?”

Gordon’s bottom eyelid went twitchy.

“You’re wondering about that stuff too?”

His attacker’s expression mellowed. “ _Huh_?”

“Yeah, I - I have no clue what’s up with that shit, man.”

“So you’ve seen it, Gordon-kun?”

“ _Seen_ it?” He scoffed. “I’ve _been_ in it!”

Forzen soured up. “Oh, no.”

The room fell quiet.

Gordon hesitated to reply. “That’s bad, isn’t it..?”

A flush crossed the cheeks of the green-wearing, v-mouthed caricature. “I mean, I totally wouldn’t _care_ if you died. Totally not.”

Gordon fell into a state of shock.

“ **_DIED?!_ ** You mean to tell me I could _die_ from this?!”

“Again, I don’t care if you do, but, _maybe_.” A single giant droplet appeared beside his head as he gave a coy shrug.

“Are you going to tell me if I’m doomed, or are you just not going to bother?”

Forzen’s shoulders pushed up to his cheeks. “Hm. I don’t know - are you ever going to explain to me why you pushed me out of your life?”

The player character shoved his face into the floor, letting out an audible whine as he deflated. “Work, Forzen. Work got in the way. I’m _sorry_. I didn’t even know you could feel until now, okay? Can we just forgive and forget about this? I really don’t have the time right now.”

Gordon yelped out as Forzen yanked on his ponytail, clearly not taking any of his reasonings into account.

“ **_THAT’S ALL I AM TO YOU?! JUST SOME DISPOSABLE IDIOT?! DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT ME?! YOU DON’T THINK I CAN EVEN FEEL, DO YOU? I WAITED FOR YOU FOR 6 MONTHS, 27 DAYS, 18 HOURS AND .24 SECONDS, AND THIS IS HOW YOU GREET ME AFTER I’M LEFT WITH NO CHOICE BUT TO SQUEEZE MYSELF BACK INTO YOUR LIFE? ‘FORGIVE AND FORGET’?! IS THAT ANY WAY TO SAY SORRY TO SOMEONE WHO LOVED YOU?!_** ”

Gordon managed to wriggle his arms out, rubbing his eyes together. On the spot, he came up with a brilliant last resort.

“You...you want a hug? You want Gordon to give you a hug?” He muttered, desperately looking back up at Forzen, hoping to be spared.

That was all it took for the steam clouds puffing over his ex’s head to disappear, and for the red and black shading on his face to fade away. 

Forzen parroted back with a wordless nod.

“Okay, well. You’re gonna need to have to, you know, do something about all this.”

Gordon flinched as Forzen, albeit frustratedly, went along with the scheme, retracting the ropes back.

With his muscles still hurting from all that time spent in the void, not to mention from all the restraints that he’d only now been freed of, Gordon meekly hoisted the tiny hacker up in his arms.

The gesture of affection was rather awkward and quite stiff given the prior events, but to Forzen, it was good enough.

“Augh, Forzen - I’m sorry. I _really_ am.”

Through his words, Gordon thought about the implications of Forzen’s whole ‘being from another game’ thing. Did that mean that all of the others were also from different games?

How much stress were they under if he couldn’t even remember which games they’d come from? 

What if they were trying to reach out, too?

Gordon blinked.

“I didn’t think you could - that you could be self aware like this. I probably sound like a huge jerk, but.. I-I didn’t think you had a life outside of the game. I just thought it was over when it was over, you know?”

Forzen let out a soft “M-hm.”

“I-If I’m gonna be honest, I rather we just stay friends, bro.”

“I could do that, Gordon-kun!”

A laugh came from the former. “Please don’t call me that. It’s _just_ Gordon.”

“...o-okay, Just Gordon.”

With that, Gordon allowed for Forzen to find his footing back on the ground.

“So...that means we’re cool here, right? You’re not gonna try to kill me or anything?”

Gordon chuckled as Forzen went into a magical-girl-esque pose. “As long as you don’t pull some shit!”

“Cool, cool. You don’t know how many times my friends have tried to betray me in the past few days.”

At this ominous statement, the two shared a laugh amongst each other.

All of a sudden, though, Gordon’s face stiffened.

_He could’ve sworn he felt something surging through his arm._


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⚠️WARNING (READ THIS FIRST!)⚠️
> 
> Before you carry on, I want to make you aware that this chapter contains instances of blood, gore, and/or body horror. If you are sensitive to such topics, do be cautious if you decide to read further. Please stay safe!

The swelling sense of discomfort was what hit Gordon first.

It didn’t take long for it to worsen, going from a slight tingling sensation to a stinging cycle of pain he could no longer ignore.

Gordon stumbled back into a wall, clutching his wrist.

“ **_Shit_ ** ! Shit, shit, shit!” He repeated over and over again, his words like a broken record.

Frozen stood as still as a statue, paralyzed and bug-eyed.

Through it all, it didn’t seem to matter how much pressure Gordon put on his arm, nor did it matter how tight he squeezed, or how much he hoped to suppress the pain. If anything, it only escalated from there.

The hurt thrust upon him quickly became unbearably agonizing.

The closest thing he could compare it to is when he plummeted into the sea of tasteless texture, that gateway into the fatal, surreal blackness. He remembered back to the sense of helplessness, the lack of control he experienced as he went under. That, too, carried over to his current crisis, and by god, did it come back with a vengeance.

He felt the world itself spin around him as it only festered more and more. By now, the excruciating burning sensation had begun to climb up to his palms, distributing itself between even the smallest joints in his fingers. It wasn’t long before he sensed his other arm follow the same, excruciating fate as he collapsed to the floor with a scream.

Gordon wanted so badly to pass out, to black out, to go unconscious. For some reason utterly unbeknownst to him, his body simply wouldn’t allow it. In spite of feeling like he was at the doorstep of death itself, a chaotic, hyperactive sort of energy coursed through his veins, the kind he could never muster up on his own. The line between what he needed to do and what his body would allow of him became thinner and thinner, and it was clear one significantly outweighed the other.

His shouts for help became muffled, forced through a superficial filter, sounding as if he was half man and half machine.

As he witnessed Gordon crumble at the seams in front of his own two eyes, Forzen knew that he had to do something.  _ Fast. _

Making his plan of action up as he went along, he rushed over to an empty table. With his big, glistening eyes darting back to Gordon - now nothing but a seething mess of a man - he used his grappling hook to snatch him up, hurling him onto the four-legged piece of furniture with all the strength he had in him. Next, in an adrenaline-induced rush, he held him back by means of shooting the hook near both sides of each limb, fastening his wrists and ankles to the hard, uncomfortable surface.

Forzen then hurried himself along to a pile of spare parts locked behind a closet, bolting back to the front of the table with a broken monitor in hand. He propped himself up on top of the square-shaped object, using it as an improvised chair.

When his eyes returned to Gordon, his confidence wavered.

His face was no longer anywhere close to being human. In its place, a cluster of multicolored squares danced about, rushing this way and that.

“ _ Just Gordon _ ? Can you hear me?” Forzen lowly asked the figure.

To his surprise, Gordon snapped back to the present quicker than he expected, his head slung backwards.

“I don’t k-know what’s happening. I don’t know. I don’t.” Gordon managed in between gasps. “It - it  _ hurts _ . It hurts  _ so much. _ ”

Involuntarily, Forzen’s brow furrowed as Gordon broke out into strenuous cries. He wandered over to Gordon’s arms.

Getting a closer look at what - by de facto - had to be the source of Gordon’s pain, Forzen observed that Gordon’s hands fizzled out glitch-like particles. Cautiously, he took a step back.

“Okay, um, bad news, Just Gordon.”

No reply.

Despite the radio silence, Forzen went on anyways.

“You... _ might _ be infected.”

Gordon didn’t have it in him to give Forzen any kind of shocked expression, only responding with a tired-sounding “... _ with what _ ?”

“...Yep, you’re  _ definitely _ infected.”

“Infected with  _ what _ ?”

“So, your arms, Just Gordon. Do they hurt anymore?”

Gordon sank back. “Yes. A  _ lot _ .”

Squinting, Gordon was halfway able to make out Forzen retreating back to the supply closet through his cracked glasses frames. Then, at a gallop, he came bounding around to the table once more.

“Correct next if I’m wrong, Just Gordon: the pain came from your  _ arms _ , correct?” Forzen chimed, holding something that Gordon couldn’t exactly distinguish behind his back.

Gordon strained to signal a “yes”, stiffly shaking his head up and down.

“And the pain  _ began _ there? In that area?”

A nod. Gordon saw a droplet of blue trickle down from the ceiling and land on his nose, though he was too preoccupied with Forzen to give it any further thought.

“So, the source of the pain is in your arms!”

A faint smile made its residence upon Gordon’s lips. “Yeah, is there anything you could do about it?” He said in a voice coated in a twinge of hope. “I can recover from this, right?”

Gordon’s attention span was suddenly broken, stirred by yet another large globule of the same mysterious liquid hitting him square in the cheek.

With his low concentration momentarily interrupted, he looked up at the source of the enigmatic leakage.

The player’s eyes went as wide as the gap between two minds.

A hand.

A giant blue clawed hand had reached inside, poking itself through the surface of the ceiling like it was nothing but a pool of water.

_ It was coming directly towards Gordon _ .

Gordon was so petrified by the unholy sight that he almost didn’t notice the revving of what could only be a chainsaw.

As he looked Forzen dead in his sinister star-shaped eyes, his suspicions were confirmed.

“Don’t worry, Just Gordon! Once your arms are gone,  _ you’ll be all better _ !” He beamed in a sing-song tone, sounding  _ far _ too enthused to carry out the dirty deed.

“ **_NO! NO! DON’T DO THIS! THE-THERE HAS TO BE ANOTHER_ ** -“

Gordon’s meager pleas for mercy were interrupted by the shrill symphony of his own screams as the sawchain pierced through the heavy material of the left elbow on the HEV Suit.

As it cut further, further, and further  _ still _ , he lunged against the restraints put in place to little success. All his struggling only led to his form continuing to glitch out even more, leading to continued strain against his already broken body.

He felt like a shell of himself as he heard a sickening  _ crack _ , followed by the sound of something metal hitting the floor.

He didn’t need to guess to know what it was.

By the time Gordon’s attacker had shifted over to the opposite arm and continued to finish the twisted work he had started - all while appearing completely unaware of the claw lingering just mere inches away from Gordon’s face - the poor soul at the receiving end of the carnage already felt himself begin to lose consciousness from all the blood loss. 

Then, when the second appendage dropped onto the tiles below, and as Gordon began preparing himself for the worst possible outcome, he felt the blue talons suddenly sink into his torso.

Like a fish being reeled in on a hook, he felt his body jolt up along with the movements of the hand, flying at light speed as it tugged him impossibly fast, soaring through the vast empty space he’d found himself suspended in just a few hours earlier. 

As his odd saving grace reeled him up further and further, a familiar sight came into view.

A pooling of black and pink checkers.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⚠️WARNING (READ THIS FIRST!)⚠️
> 
> Before you carry on, I want to make you aware that this chapter contains instances of blood, gore, and/or body horror. If you are sensitive to such topics, do be cautious if you decide to read further. Please stay safe!

Gordon’s vision went aflutter. With his eyes slogging open, a ping rang through his head.

Groaning and grappling with his headache, he folded inwards on his knees like a lawn chair being thrown to the side.

Crooking himself over, a hotness hit his back. A steaming, magma-like heat that nipped at the hair on his skin. Weighed up against the chilliness of the black oblivion, though, the humidity was a welcome change of pace. It’s biting warmth felt less of a nuisance and more of a comfort.

Along the lines of comfort, Gordon rustled around as he sensed something soft hitting his skin. An article of cotton.

Like the lens of a camera, his vision fluctuated, blurring in and out.

Benrey and Tommy - now lacking his lab coat - came into view, patiently sitting in front of him.

A trail of drool coursed it’s way down Gordon’s chin.

“ _Hey_.”

Gordon found his voice unusually brittle, far more hoarse than normal. He spoke in a tone he himself could not entirely decipher, like hearing the voice of a stranger you’ve never met coming out of your mouth.

Tommy spoke up, his voice cracking. “Oh, Mr. Freeman! W-we were so worried abo-“

The scientist felt someone touch his hand, halting it back from touching the confused man splayed out before him.

Benrey looked him in the eyes.

What the one whispered to the other was all Greek to Gordon, although he did pick up on mumblings of a “possible threat” and something about him “not being right yet” prior to Benrey shifting his head to him.

“You really, uh, _really_ conked out down there, man.”

Gordon’s face tightened up. He had _no_ idea what Benrey could have meant by that. ‘Conked out’? Was that what he said? A stream of white noise occupied his mind. Whatever Benrey’d been referring to, he couldn’t tie the two and two together for the life of him.

“Yeah - doe-does it _hurt_?” Tommy pondered.

“Can you feel anything?”

With the way Gordon looked at the eccentric duo, you would’ve thought that they’d come from the planet Mars.

A light chuckle escaped Gordon’s throat.

“H-heh...guys…? How come you’re looking at me like that?” He faintly remarked, his voice dimming the more he went on.

Tommy didn’t seem to have an answer for him, nor did Benrey. All they gave him back in reply was a glance to the middle of his torso.

Caving in to their cues, Gordon’s attention shifted over to their main concern: the right sleeve on his jacket.

Making a visual path of the sleeve, Gordon felt the coils of his body locking up upon reaching the area where his elbow should have rested.

_It wasn’t there_.

His heart started beating a hundred miles a minute.

Feeling his stomach twist and tangle, he shifted over his other arm in some needless attempt to feel around the empty space. Only this time, there _was_ no other arm. 

Just...more dead air.

Haplessly still, he flopped at the loose sleeve with the other. The only thing the sleeves hung onto the nubs of his biceps, the only thing he had left of his dismembered limbs.

“ _Guys…_?”

The heartbreak in his voice was more than permeable.

“I-I tried my best to patch you up, Mr. Freeman, I really did. I thought the, uh - that the bandages- that they’d hold you together, for now...“

Gordon _had_ to be hallucinating. At least, that’s what he kept telling himself. He couldn’t survive without both of his arms, could he? Right? How was he breathing, then? How was he _alive?_

Clumsily, he used the end of what remained of his left arm to get a look at the remnants of the right, fumbling around at it. He drew the swathed stump a few inches between his eyes. Awkwardly, he rotated it around, getting more and more pale the more he stared at his newfound injury. As he forced out strained gasps, his sudden movements pushed out drops of blood from in between the stained seams of the bandages. He felt the urge to thumb at it with his other hand, had he still had it attached.

Slowly he lowered himself to the ground, embracing its stiffness as he pushed his arms to the side, wheezing out tears.

Everything was hitting him all at once.

Tommy left Benrey with a concerned look. Thinking the same thing that he was, the ladder gave a nod.

With not a word being exchanged between either of the trio, the scientist hoisted up the shell of a man into his arms, emphasizing his reassurance by running his hand along Gordon’s back. “Don’t worry, M-Mr. Freeman, i-it’s gonna be O-K.”

Gordon accepted the warm gesture. He brought his head forward onto Tommy’s shoulder. Unable to return the hug, he sank himself deeper into the embrace.

All Benrey did was distantly stare on at the two locked together, like he was wholly disconnected from reality.

Feeling Benrey’s eyes on him, Tommy nervously looked over his shoulder, only to see Benrey’s gaze diverted onto the ground. In that quick snippet of time, he noticed that something seemed to _click_ for the horned guard. Sadness? Guilt, maybe? Whatever was eating away at him, it made him excrete an air of embarrassment. His eyes were heavy. His shoulders relaxed, not out of relief, but out of whatever was weighing down on him. He sat at the edge of the purple and black expanse, casually kicking his legs in the same waters that’d been the cause of Gordon’s turmoil.

Needless to say, Tommy quickly picked up on his friend’s reclusiveness.

“You….you can heal this, right..?”

Benrey blinked.

Analyzing the inflection of Gordon’s voice, he realized his question wasn’t aimed at Tommy, but at _him._

“...Whuh?”

“M-My _arms._ You said that - that you could heal things with that, u-um...? When I first met you? Remember that?”

Hopping to his heels, Benrey approached the two with a sense of caution he had rarely displayed before. “Oh. _Rough_.” He said, minding the gap in Gordon’s arms. Gordon tensed up as Benrey grabbed a hold of one of his stumps, clawed hands getting dangerously close to digging into the already damaged skin. Carefully, he unraveled the bandages. The more he revealed, the more Gordon found it harder to look at what was left behind. Then, Benrey stopped. The last of the bandages had fallen to the floor.

He tugged the end of the stump closer to his face, looking like a detective uncovering a murder scene. Lowering it, he lifted his head up to Gordon. His mouth contorted into a deep frown.

“Do y’know who did this to you...?” Benrey asked, releasing his tattered limb.

Gordon’s face swelled with red. “My anime b-“

Thankfully, he’d caught himself before he could make himself look even _more_ pitiful.

He grumbled between gritted teeth. “My _ex._ My ex did this.”

“What was that?”

“It was my _ex_ , okay?”

“Damn. Must be one crazy ex you got there.”

_‘Crazy’ wasn’t even the start of it,_ Gordon thought.

“How bad is it..?” He whimpered.

“Well, your _arms_ are gone.”

“I-I’m not in the mood for this. _Please_.”

Benrey’s bones audibly chattered as he shook with a sigh. “Well, have a look for yourself.”

With that, Benrey turned the stump towards Gordon. At the sight of the thing, he wore a look of utter disbelief.

More of the _fucking_ checkers.

Tommy immediately removed his arms from Gordon’s waist, frantically digging through the pockets of the lab coat he’d slung over him. Before Gordon knew it, the bandages were back. He desperately tried to match his breaths with his ever-increasing heartbeat.

“Benrey - holy _shit. Fuck._ \- B-benrey, I’m - It didn’t fucking work! It didn’t _work_!” Said Gordon in between frenzied gulps for air.

Tommy brought the panicked man closer, rocking from side to side, his tall frame making his head rest on top of his. “Breathe, Mr. Freeman.” He pleaded. “Breathe in, and breathe out. Y-you’ll calm down if - if you do that.”

Hearing Tommy out, Gordon followed along the instructions. In, out. Out, and in again. A good thirty seconds later, the advice had paid off. Albeit still shaken, he had, indeed, calmed down considerably.

A song.

“Look! That means - uh - that means a heal beam, Mr. Freeman!” Tommy explained energetically.

Not just the banging of drums, or the riff of a bass, but something vocal. A melody. Singing. A tune that flowed, with bends, dips, and lifts. A mix of light and dark blue-shaded orbs came into view. There Benrey was, harmonizing his heart out into Gordon’s wound.

Now that he thought about it, he’d never heard him actually _sing_ , did he? He’d heard him play - but he’d never hear him sing.

Not long after, he found out why that was.

A blue beam suddenly exploded from Gordon’s injury, shooting the bandages clean off and passing directly through Benrey’s head. Despite the sheer power of the flash - that of which Gordon himself was able to feel - Benrey appeared not at all to be affected by it. Nonetheless, a now screaming Gordon aimed the beam at the ceiling, its unbridled force echoing through his body. Slowly but surely, the light shrunk down, dissipating back into his hacked-up arm. Upon further inspection, the open slice of missing textures had healed over, no longer exposing Gordon’s puncture to the elements.

Gordon had no time to catch his breath, though, as a new concern was piled onto the mountain of ones he already had. Pixels began cascading down from where he’d last positioned the beam, spiralling around the empty space in his limb. Watching them spin about, visions of metallic greys bounced through his sight. The tornado of steel particles reached its apex as the spiraling shape started to solidify into something tall. Something narrow. Something that tapered off. Something jagged at the end.

_A sword._

The room lulled to a silent crawl.

In a state of awe, Gordon stared at his reflection in the blade. It’s exterior was shiny, untouched, brilliant. Curiously, he tensed up his nerves, just to see what’d happen. Corresponding to the movement, the sword retracted back into his arm, although it caused him no pain. It was as if he’d simply put the weapon back in its hilt. 

“Benrey...?! This...this is fucking _insane_!”

Tommy marveled along with him. “Woah! That’s so cool! I wish I had a sword for an arm! W-well. Not the, uh, not the ‘losing an arm’ part, really...”

“You like it, bro?” Benrey asked.

Gordon pulled the sword out, then yanked it back. “Yeah! I mean - I have no idea how this is gonna work, though. Like, it _owns_ , but how am I supposed to hold onto stuff?”

The bladed man felt a crack register through his other arm. To his dismay, Benrey’s bony limb now resided where his own once did. Disgusted, he gave him a look that had ‘what have you just done to me’ written all over it. “EW. EW. _EW._ OKAY, WHAT THE _SHIT_.” He ranted, flailing the skeletal limb about in an attempt to throw it off.

“What? I thought you _wanted_ opposable thumbs.” The sarcasm in the punk’s voice seeped through his words.

“ **NOT** **_YOUR_ ** **OPPOSABLE THUMBS!!! THAT’S** **_GROSS_ ** **!!!** ”

Benrey’s eyelids lowered as he removed his own arm from out of Gordon’s socket, having somehow already grown it back by now. “Whatever, Swordon Freeman.” Disgruntled, he snapped his leftover hand off of its wrist using nothing but his bare teeth, beginning to gnaw on his finger bones as he threw the rest of it in the lava. “ _Suit yourself, I guess._ ” He mumbled in between sickening crunches.

Gordon looked like he wanted to pass away.

“U-uh, Benrey?” Tommy said.

“Huh?”

“I hate to pause, your, uh… _literal_ bonemeal, but-“ His voice lowered, almost like he was telling a secret. “- _do the others know about this?_ ”

“About what?”

”About…” A cough. “Y’know. T-the _arm_ thing.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. _Thattttt._ ”

Gordon, feeling a little perplexed, chimed in on the conversation. “Wait. You’re telling me that they don’t know about this…? And what about - what about Coomer? Is he _okay_?”

Benrey wiped the fragments of bone from his face. As he felt around his helmet bashfully, Gordon only then noticed the huge crack running across it. _Probably from hitting that wall,_ he thought. 

“Yeesh, uh….okay, so basically. Here’s the rundown. Doc? He’s alive. He’s good. Had a bit of a fall, though he pushed through it. He’ll be fine. That Bubby dude made it out too, kinda looked sad by something though...? Eh. I don’t really know.”

“What about G?” Questioned Gordon.

“’G’? Oh, yeah. _That_ lil’ freak. Totally. Gonna have to be honest, I wasn’t really keeping tabs on him. _No_ idea where he went.”

Gordon’s eyes went searching around the room for any of the people Benrey had brought up, but no. It was just them, apparently. “Hey, speaking of them... _where are they_?”

“I think they’d be outside by now, M-Mr. Freeman.”

“They’re outside? _Already_?”

“Well,” Tommy elaborated, “I do-don’t know for _sure_ ? But the last thing that Bubby said was that h-he and Coomer were…they were ‘getting the hell out of here’? And then they just, they just _bolted_ , like two sparks of electricity going through a power line in a busy city.”

“Which way did they go?”

Tommy pointed to the same ladder he’d tried to scale before his personal hell unfolded. “That way! Straight ahead!”

Benrey joined in. “Uh, here’s the issue -“ 

Gordon felt someone tug on his unoccupied bicep, hoisting it up in the air.

“- How’s he gonna climb that? He’s got no _arms_ , bro.”

For once, Gordon actually agreed with him. “He’s got a point. How _am_ I going to get up there?”

Like a lightbulb in a cave, Tommy’s face lit up. Cheerily, he resumed a standing position, his height making him loom over the two. “Ooh! I’ve got an _idea_!”

Before he could object to whatever bonkers plan was bouncing between the walls of the researcher’s head, Gordon found himself trapped in an orange, human-sized, hamster ball-like bubble. His body’s reaction to the new setting wasn’t ideal, as its slippery coating led him to trip and fall flat on his face. If his glasses weren’t already broken into oblivion, then they certainly would be by now. Dazed and confused, he felt his ball-shaped prison be hoisted up into the air.

“I’ll just _carry_ you!”

Being completely able to lift up Gordon - puzzle bubble and all - without showing any signs of slipping, it turned out that Tommy was stronger than either of the two had previously assumed.

Adjusting his shattered beyond repair glasses, he gave a sickly smile.

“You know what..? T- _That’ll do.”_


	20. Chapter 20

_ Creak. _

With a shove, Tommy unhinged the manhole cover, popping his head into the outdoors.

Immediately upon doing so, he felt a soft breeze tickle through his hair. The stark difference between the still air of the cold, solemn hallways of Black Mesa and the lively winds of the outdoors was enough to catch him off guard.

He placed his palms onto the rough, rocky New Mexico soil, pivoting himself out. Small dust clouds trailed behind every major movement that he made. Finding his footing, he hurriedly scraped off patches of dirt from his clothing as he stood.

After taking a breath, Tommy smiled. Glancing back at the open escape route confidently, he used his hands to form a megaphone-like gesture around his mouth.

“The coast is clear!”

Without further ado, out came Benrey and Gordon, one after the other. All it took was one step on a pile of dirt for the entire bubble Gordon had been encased in to pop wide open, with him thankfully managing to find his balance this time.

Benrey spent no time hesitating on somersaulting out of there, running around the area, balled fists held triumphantly in the air.

“ **YOOOOOOO!! WE DID IT!!!** ” He cheered, running around in circles like the fool he was. All that spinning made him incredibly dizzy, sending him tumbling to the ground. He didn’t seem to mind, though, as his laughter only intensified as he rolled around in the dirt, his arrow-shaped tail whapping at the ground.

By the time Gordon had reached him, most of the dirt in that area had condensed onto his clothes. Endeared by the imp’s ways, he rolled his eyes. He went to reach out for him only to realize the uselessness of the gesture.

“Gee, Swordon, didn’t know you wanted to hold me  _ that  _ badly.” Benrey scoffed.

Gordon took a defensive step back. “ _ Hold _ you?! I-I don’t wanna hold you! Especially not when you’re covered in dirt like this!”

“Well, what were you about to do right there, then?”

“I was gonna stop you from getting all filthy, man! You’re not gonna be - you aren’t going to be able to get that out!”

“See,  _ now _ you’re just telling me you’re concerned for me.”

“I - I - Of  _ course _ I’m concerned for you.”

“And why’s that?”

Having lowered his head, Gordon looked at Benrey, covered in sand.

“It’s because I’m your  _ friend, _ you dingus.”

Just like that, Benrey’s eyes grew sunny. “...you  _ mean _ it?”

The act of Gordon unhinging the sword part of his arm made him draw back momentarily, but as his eyes drifted up to his, he relaxed. The man standing above him bore an affable look. For once, he seemed, at least from an observable level, not particularly bottled up with anything. Like there was a truth to his words.

“I’ll mean it if you want me to.”

Using his bony hand to grab onto the blade as opposed to the other, Benrey hoisted himself back up, neglecting to swipe the knees of his pants from the mire he’d so invested himself into.

“...thanks.” Benrey said, barely audible. “It means a lot.”

Gordon’s attention quickly turned to Tommy, rounding the corner behind a large crate. Tagging along, he went after him, with Benrey keeping pace not too far behind. 

The triad stopped upon reading a cliff overlooking the distant and tall mountain range. Had Tommy stepped a foot further, it would have been the difference between life and death. But, that wasn’t on his mind right now. He was more caught up in the beauty of the sky he found himself blanketed over. Engrossed at its sheer elegance, his mouth hung open, eyes shining brightly. As he joined him, Gordon soon found that he was right to react in such a way.

Saying that such a sky was impossible on Earth would be putting it lightly. Seeing the velvety expanse above for himself, Gordon couldn’t help but be reminded of the time his parents had taken him to the planetarium as a child. He always thought back to how he looked through the telescope, the wilds of the universe presented in front of him, not unlike a gift wrapped in a pretty red bow. Cutting back to the present, the stars shimmered around a display of purple and pink clouds like countless specks of glitter. The sky itself, an ombré between lavenders and purples. The fluffy painterly puffs twisted around one another in a loving embrace.

“Pretty stuff, huh, Mr. Freeman?”

“Yeah.  _ Really _ pretty.”

Of course, Benrey just had to interrupt the sparse moment of silence.

“Oh, I could  _ so _ write a song about this sky.”

Gordon gave the musical demon a puzzled twitch of the eyebrow. “You write your own songs?”

Benrey clicked his tongue. “I’m not just gonna let these guitar fingers sit around, am I?”

Gently pushing Gordon to the side, Tommy shook his clenched fists up and down excitedly. “Ooh! What kind of music do you play? Can - can you play something for  _ me _ ?”

In a manner that could only be described as slick, the half-skeletal rockstar swiped out a brightly-colored electric guitar. “Well,” he began counting on his fingers, “I can play pop, I can play rock - obviously - metal, blues, swing, alternative, british, indie, indie-adjacent alternative, extreme alternative, hardcore softcore surf rock deluxe, folk punk, music for gay people, evil music, fucked up  _ and _ evil music, pure silence, heavy metal, not-so-heavy metal, coffee shop breakcore, entire musicals, romance songs, music that sounds like it came out of the ass of hell, dance, jazz - oh yeah, and country music - Beethoven wannabe clones, whatever the fuck blond girls running radio stations think classifies as ‘tolerable’ - did I mention country music? I think so - vegan instrumental grunge, pop punk, farm emo, the saxophone, jazz 2….I might be forgetting some, but yeah. Also I might have made some of those up.”

“Can I request some dog music?”

“ _ What the fuck are you two talking about _ -“ Turns out, Gordon’s pleas for exposition fell on deaf ears.

“-Some dog music?” Benrey got situated, introducing his knees to the ground once more. “I can do dog music.” His clawed hands surrounded the hilt of the guitar, getting to work by diligently tuning each string.

As the sound of a dog barking melodically hit the airwaves, another sound came to the forefront of Gordon’s mind. Two distinct voices chittering amongst themselves just around the corner. Not seeing much use to sticking around to begin with as the other two members were already preoccupied, Gordon rounded the bend. They seemed not to notice his absence. 

A fire entered his vision, more specifically, a campfire. Sat beside it were two very familiar figures.

“Ah! Hello, Joshua! We’ve been waiting for you!” One resounded.

“ _ Sure took you long enough _ .” The other cursed.

Upon the mere sight of the two greying old men, Gordon’s factory-setting tired face vanished into thin air.

“You guys...you’re  _ okay _ !”

Coomer gave an enthusiastic arm swing. “Never felt better, Joshua! I may ask, how are you feeling?”

Gordon made himself at home on top of one of the oil barrels arranged in a campfire log-like formation, sitting at the one facing the both of them. “Me? I-I….things haven’t been that easy. Not for me, anyway.”

Bubby finally caught on to what Gordon seemed so pressed about. “Blistering barnacles - your  _ arms! _ ”

Remorsefully, Gordon’s eyes went with the current. “Yeah...they’re, uh, not exactly  _ there _ anymore.” He tacked on a half-baked chuckle at the end to signify just how much he’d put it lightly.

“Oh, dear, Joshua! That looks  _ severe _ ! Do you need help? A bandaid, perhaps?”

“No, no, Dr. Coomer. It just healed over a while ago. I’ll be fine. R-Really, I will.”

The squinty-eyed biker leaned towards Gordon, who adjusted himself so that he could get a good look at his injury. Toying at the nub with his pointer finger - completely phasing through the fire propped in the middle in the process - he let out a bewildered, “...... _ How _ did this happen?”

Gordon threw his shoulders back. “Hoo, boy. Now  _ that’s _ a story.”

Resting his hands on his own bulbous, sphere-shaped face, Coomer chimed in. “Please, do go on, Joshua - if it’s not too painful to remember, that is.”

“Well, basically, I fell in -“

“I remember that.” Bubby quickly interjected, arms crossed.

Gordon went on, paying no mind to the prior interruption. “I fell into that lava, right? Or that chessboard? Whatever it’s called - and then, I just - I just ...fell. And there was nothing around me but blackness. Total emptiness, for miles, and miles, and miles. Days, even. It felt like  _ months _ , and there was no one around there but me. And then, I felt something grab me, and there was just this wall of hands, and it pulled me in, and that’s when I woke up and I was in this….this room. It had TVs all over the place and it gave me a headache, and then my ex started slapping me in the face - my ex was there by the way - a-and then he tried acting all nice to me, but...but my arms...and then, my body, I-it….it didn’t feel like my  _ own… _ .”

He took pause.

“It didn’t feel like I was myself, then. There was...there was something possessing me then, I think. It made me….m-made me go  _ crazy. _ I couldn’t tell if I wasn’t me, if that makes any sense. Couldn’t even tell right from wrong….l-left from right, even.”

A heavy, weighty sigh filled the conversational gap. Despite the obvious strain, Gordon kept talking.

“Then, he ran over to - t-to a door. He ran to the door. He opened it and he went inside for a while and….he came out with a saw. He comes out with a saw and puts me on a table a-and makes me  _ sit there _ while he cuts off my …. my  _ arms…. _ n-not just one, b-but...both of them. I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t. I  _ couldn’t _ . Th-thankfully, um, Benrey, he, uh, he saved me. Again. B-But...it still hurts. It hurts a lot.”

They all just sat there for a moment, taking in the insane story that Gordon had just laid out for them. By the time he’d finished up, Gordon’s entire body was trembling. The two seniors looked at him, completely mortified.

“But, h-hey!” Gordon made an attempt to dispel the silent tension by raising up his arm, jamming down on it to unsheathe the blade that’d been bestowed upon him. “At least I got a cool sword! That’s fun, right?  _ Right _ ?”

Even being the hardened, cold individual that he was, Bubby wasted no time into making his way over to Gordon and slinging an arm around his shoulder. Gordon reacted to this, at first, with shock. Out of all the people to show affection, Bubby would be the last one he’d think to do so. Nonetheless, it was welcome, as stiff as the gesture may have felt to him.

“I’m... _ very _ sorry you had to go through that, Gordon.”

Soon enough, Coomer, too, joined in, reaching for and holding onto his ankle, being too small to give him a proper hug.

It wasn’t long until Gordon heard Benrey and Tommy’s voices echo over the corner, and upon seeing the group hug, they both made a mad dash and wrapped their arms around him as well.

In that very moment, Gordon had felt a sense of community, an almost magical sense of togetherness. He couldn’t remember the last time that a group of people, especially one as diverse and unique as this, teamed up to care for him. Even with their clashing interests and personalities, they all worked together like a puzzle. It truly amazed him how much they were there to support him. Smiling, he buried his head in their shared embrace.

“Thank you,” he uttered, “ _ thank you all so much. _ ”

The night - as all nights do - carried on from there. As it went on, the group started inventing ways to pass the time. One peculiar occurrence was an instance in which Benrey tried to teach Gordon and Tommy how to go about doing that singy-orb thing he’d become known in the group for doing. Keyword there being ‘tried’. This only resulted in Gordon hacking up spit attempting to “summon up the colors that dance about in his soul” - as Benrey had put it, word-for-word - and as for Tommy, he’d been faking being able to do it with the assistance of his handy-dandy puzzle spheres. Put simply: it was safe to say that Benrey’s little lesson plan had failed miserably.

Next, Bubby came up with the ingenious idea of telling his best stories from his prime racer days. He’d gone on and on about enthralling stories of him crashing not one, not two, but what could’ve been  _ hundreds _ of cars - not including his own, of course. By far, though, the one that seemed to get everyone in stitches was this one tale of when he was just getting accustomed to being behind the wheel, and by an act of god, an entire  _ lawn mower _ got accidentally stuck in the grill. Not only that, but it was somehow still running, so when another racer sidelined his vehicle, the mower flew through his window, flew through the other driver’s window, and shaved the top of his hair  _ clean _ off before escaping through the other window. It finished off its mad dash by revving into the sunset, and just like that, nobody ever heard from it again.

Eventually, though, hunger began to set in amongst the team. Benrey pitched in with the suggestion that the group should start growling and hissing at animals until they dropped dead from exhaustion, which was immediately shot down by Tommy’s objectively better plan to chow down on some of his puzzle spheres instead. To everyone’s surprise, the circles tasted just like any fruit would, with some comparing it to a mixture between mangoes and pineapples. Gordon was clearly upset by his inability to get a taste for himself - what with him no longer having access to his fingers and all - so, this time and this time only, he finally accepted Benrey’s mirthless suggestion to simply use his own bony arm instead. 

As it got later and later, the Fun Team - the title that the group unanimously agreed to dub themselves after a long session of arguing over said topic - became aware of the darkening sky. After exchanging “Goodnight!”s and “Sweet dreams!” amongst each other, they all climbed inside the sleeping bags that Bubby had managed to scrounge up amongst the number storage bins scattered about their turf, falling into slumber surrounded by the stars.

All except for one.

Gordon had never liked sleeping outside, even if in a tent of some sort. He’d always found the sensation of the blankets pressing up against the dirt to be a bit uncomfortable and jarring, and the entire experience was essentially ruined for him by the presence of bugs that could nip or bite at him in his sleep. So, with Tommy’s aid, he set up his personal sleeping bag in the back of a storage crate adjacent to the campsite. Sure, it was not at all cozy and a little on the claustrophobic side, but Gordon reasoned with himself that it was more favorable than the likely possibility of getting bit by a scorpion in his sleep.

As he tossed and turned in his metal box bedroom, he heard the door creak open. Turns out, he wasn’t the only one up late at this hour.

Benrey crawled through the opening, flashlight in hand. He was wide awake.

“Hey.”

Gordon blinked, wearing a bored expression on his face. He was just as sleepless as him. “M-hm.”

“You... _ awake _ there, Feetman?”

“Yeah,” Quipped Gordon back, “can’t get to sleep for some reason.”

A squeaking sounded throughout the enclosure as Benrey placed his back against the wall, allowing his body to slide down with the force of gravity. He found himself sat beside Gordon, who fussed about with the covers, pulling himself out in a sitting position not unlike Benrey’s.

Benrey nodded back. “Me either. I keep thinkin’ about... _ stuff _ .”

“Hm? What kind of stuff, exactly?”

It was evident that Benrey was awaiting some breed of follow up to the question, but no such thing came. Looking at the coarse metal ground, he answered with “...can’t really say. Just things, I guess.”

“Ah. I think what’s keeping me up is just...a combination of like, the noise and - this is gonna sound crazy, but something about the  _ air _ ? It feels ….fuzzy. I don't know how to put it, but whatever it is, I’m not a fan of it.”

“I get that.”

Gordon’s eyes widened. “You get that  _ too _ ? Like, that  _ feeling _ ? That sort of…” He made a punching gesture, which was hard to decipher due to his lack of hands, but Benrey seemed to understand. “You know, that  _ ‘oomph’ _ feeling? That one?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I totally get what you’re getting at, bro.”

“Yo, you  _ too _ ?!”

“Oh,  _ all _ of the time. Like - you know water? Areas with water in them?”

“Like, lakes?”

“Lakes! Lakes. That’s the word. Ugh, I can't stand those fuckin’ things.”

“Why not?”

Benrey scratched at his helmet. “I just...the salt. Even if it’s cleanwater or whatever you call it? I’m  _ still _ gonna smell that shit. And the noise, I hate the noise too. The crashing of the water…yeesh. Just gets under my skin. I’m not afraid of it, it just - just fucks with my vibe, you know?”

“Mhm. I get where you’re coming from with that.”

“Which part of it? The water-phobia thing or the being creeped out by certain places thing?”

“I dunno - I  _ think _ it’s the latter. You know what I just can’t be around?”

“What?”

“Caves. Hate those things. Have you ever gone inside - inside a  _ cave _ ? There’s all this dripping water and all these rocks that get in your shoes….not a great time. Not for me, anyway.”

“Okay, okay, but are you afraid of them, or are you just ticked off by them? ‘Cuz I always feel like there’s a fine, fine line between the two.”

“Both.”

“Would you...uh. Go so far as to say you want all caves gone?-“

“Uh,  _ yeah _ .”

A goofy smirk grew across Benrey’s face, and it quickly spread to Gordon as well.

“... _ What about the bats _ ?” Benrey said, trying - and failing - to stifle his laughter.

Coming down with a serious case of a chuckling fit, Gordon bowed his head. “ **_YOU THINK I GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE BATS???_ ** **”**

At this, the two shared a lengthy laugh that eventually decrescendoed into silence. A change in Benrey’s tone made Gordon look up at him once more, his eyes weightier.

“Hey. U-um.”

Even in those two words, Benrey instantly sounded more serious, more grounded in reality than he had before. Picking up on this, Gordon stiffened up.

Benrey stuck to his guns. “ _ I…I need to tell you something _ . It’s been on my mind for a while now, but….better now than never, I guess.”

Gordon felt a drop of sweat travel across his forehead, only getting more flustered as he felt Benrey’s fleshy hand make a soft, gentle kind of contact with his leg.

“I  _ really _ hope I’m not jumping off a cliff here, but...Gordon, remember back earlier? When you s- When you said we were  _ friends _ ..?”

The tense man held his head firmly against the wall.

Now, Benrey had climbed up into his lap, looking up at him with big, deep-set eyes, making him impossible to ignore. Although he had built up an external shell of hate for the security guard laid in his legs over the past two days, Gordon couldn't deny that slowly but surely, his facade was starting to slip, and his fondness was beginning to show.

“Haha...b-but what if… _ like… _ ”

Bit by bit, Benrey inched his clawed hand towards the side of Gordon’s face. As he landed it on him securely yet softly, Gordon accepted it, closing his eyes and wallowing in his comfort.

Benrey’s heart raced. For once his attempts at reaching out  _ hadn’t _ fallen on his face and tumbled down a hill into a ravine to lay dying. Normally, Gordon would have rejected his advancements vehemently, but both of them knew that this time, something was different.

Gordon was more sullen, eyes more sunken in. He’d gone through so much, and in such a limited period of time.

“We..could totally be more than that, if - I-if you wanted to…” Benrey stumbled over his words, his vision focusing on Gordon’s lips.

Placing a stubbed arm onto Benrey’s extended elbow, Gordon shifted himself inwards.

“Benrey,” he said dearly, his voice hushed, “c-come closer.  _ Please _ .”

Starstruck, it took Benrey a minute to gather his bearings. But then, just like that, Benrey took up the offer.

As Benrey’s face slid into his own, Gordon felt his heart skip not one, but several beats one after the other, his body rapidly falling and rising with each breath. Taking note of this, Benrey slid a cadaverous hand steadily onto the middle of his chest, sensing his ever-increasing heartbeat subdue in pace as the seconds passed on. Feeling the initial shock of the bold gesture wearing off, Gordon couldn’t help but follow Benrey’s lead, melting into the kiss.

By then, Benrey had drawn so close to Gordon that he could hold him securely in his grasp, even with his shortened arms. He found himself incredibly surprised at just how passionate he felt towards him, allowing for the soft palm of his hand to lovingly caress his cheek.

It didn’t take long at all for Gordon to become engrossed in the euphoria of it all, the adoring sense of touch, the unobscured flush seeping across his face, the sensation of feeling the wrinkles on Benrey’s heavy, baggy clothes crinkle up as he, too, indulged in the embrace. 

Opening his makeup-smeared eyes, Benrey abruptly pulled away.

“D-Damn, Feetman - you  _ really _ got into it there, huh?”

Benrey went without a reply, only being mirrored back by a hug. Not like he was complaining.

“I really needed th-that.” Gordon spoke, muffled in between the tides of Benrey’s shirt.

“So….what’s this mean now?”

“Huh…?”

The sound of Benrey’s tail eagerly thwapping against the metal door served as a timer awaiting Gordon’s response. “Like,” he went on to elaborate, “what are we..? Just bros?”

Gordon rocketed back into his sleeping bag. “Fuck, I dunno, man. Probably gonna sleep on it. L-let’s see what goes down tomorrow, ‘kay?” He slurred his speech, groggily swiping the blankets onto his HEV suit.

Benrey extended a hand. “ _ Wait _ .”

Already feeling the sandman beginning to work his magic, Gordon shifted back around.

Sheepishly, Benrey pulled his talon back, clasping at it with his other. “U-um. Maybe I could, uh. Room with you. You know. For convenience’s sake.”

Gordon wore a pursed smile. “Get under here already, you dork.”

Not one to argue with that notion, Benrey squabbled on all fours, thumbing at the covers. Shimmying his way down into the tightly-packed sleeping solution like a worm in the rain, he made sure to throw an arm over Gordon’s shoulder, eliciting a close-eyed smirk from the battle torn man.

As he got situated, Benrey opened his mouth. Gloubles of blue and pink spouted out, illuminating the dark, damp corridor. They carried with them a sound that made Gordon harken back to his childhood, the lovely chimes of a music box.

“G’night, Benrey.”

“...You too.”


	21. Chapter 21

“I’m _alone_.”

Screech.

“Isolated…”

Screech.

“ _Miserable._ ”

Forzen solemnly looked up at his chainsaw-sewn creation - a grotesque, jagged portrait of him and Gordon holding hands lay vandalizing the wall. Noticing his artistic inaccuracy, he raised the blade of the weapon to the first-grade art piece and crossed out both of Gordon’s arms. Exaggerated blobs of tears filled his eye sockets as he pulled away, woefully admiring the installation.

“Is that how you want me to feel, Just Gordon?” The revving of the chainsaw returned to the room, it’s user making a slash on the poorly-drawn portrait of his ex’s neck. “ _IS THAT HOW YOU WANT ME TO FEEL???_ ”

The rage coursing through Forzen’s tiny body swelled to a peak. He let the anger consume him as his eyes twisted into riled white semicircles, his mouth contorting into a sharp-toothed square shape. The harsh metal-on-metal noise filling the security room was ear-shattering enough to make an auditorium of elementary school age children go deaf. Sparks of steel flew through the air frivolously with each indent. At the end of his tirade, the scribbling of Gordon was nothing more than a gash in the wall, with no semblance of tangibility to it whatsoever. Forzen threw his beloved motor saw to the side, throwing it with such force that it clanged up against the wall. He collapsed into a hyper-cartoonish waterfall of tears, blubbering on incoherently.

“Why did you have to do this to me?!” He said, as he placed a gloved hand onto the dent. “Why? **_WHY???_ **”

His cartoonish wails dulled to a low hush as he pressed his cheek against the wall. “We could have been such good friends, Just Gordon. We could have been _such_ good friends. But _no._ ” Dramatically, he swept a palm across his forehead, retracting back. “ _It was simply not meant to be_ …”

Then, all of a sudden, his spiel was interrupted by a loud knock at the door. At this, Forzen performed an involuntary backflip, landing in a shaken, cat-like position onto the floor. Clumsily crawling on all fours, he leaned his ear against the door, only to be taken aback by yet another knock.

“Hiii! Who is it?” Forzen said in a falsetto sing-song voice. The tacked-on upbeat look on his face hardened. Not a name, not a greeting, but white noise and distorted garbling answered back. He took a moment, formulating his reply. “ _Uh-huh_. Listen, friend. I’m going to be blunt with you. I’m in the middle of some very important moping here. First priority stuff. So unless you’re here on important terms, I won’t bother with rescheduling my well-deserved mental breakdown, okay? Okay! Glad we both understand!~”

Evidently, whatever was on the other side of that door did not understand. The knocking only got louder, sounding like it was going to unhinge the door at any second.

Wary of this, Forzen pressed his back against the wall, bracing for impact. He didn’t have to wait long, as in the span of seconds, the hinges of the entryway came unhinged, allowing for a sentient, missing-textured, jelly-like mass to come spilling in. Fortunately for him, it didn’t seem to notice him firmly paralyzed against the cold surface.

Not at first, at least.

A bombastic heavy metal ringtone blasted from his pockets, causing the creature to look his way. As it drew near with malicious intent, Forzen let out every expletive in the book under his breath. Damn it, he had a _feeling_ that he should’ve silenced his phone earlier.

Unable to rip his gaze away from the monster, he went to reach for his handy dandy chainsaw, only to realize it wasn’t there. He remembered how he’d carelessly flung it to the opposite side of the room in frustration, and as the abomination approached him, cornering him to that wall, he realized how fruitless the endeavor of trying to retrieve it would be. 

He was left with no other choice.

Forzen deliberately tapped his foot against the aged tiles. At his request, the room transformed on a whim from an office space into a pink, doorless confine, impossible to tell where the floors began and the ceiling ended. Surprised at the unpredictable change in scenery, the threat before him drew back, confused at the hearts flying through the air. It jumped as an empty, tall meter with a black heart looming over the top appeared out of nowhere beside its head. In spite of its clawing, the GUI wouldn’t go away.

Struck with a sudden confidence, Forzen turned around, now facing the creature with a flirtatious look on his face.

“ _You come here often~~~_?”

Confused, the being tilted what could be assumed to be its head. It seemed to suffer pain not unlike the sensation of being pinched as the meter to its side slightly filled up, with the pink liquid it contained barely being visible. 

“ **_SCSSGFSHSFSHSGSFSHSFSGJS_ **?????” It beckoned nonsensically.

“Ah, you do~?” Forzen dug up something in his vest. A rose. Romantically, he squeezed the flower in between his teeth. “What’s a pretty little thing like you doing in a place like this?”

“ **_SVSVSGSGFG???!!!?? BHSHVSHSHSHSH!!!15(2(52526/4823)3)?:?:). &.99766/8 :OOOOO_ **”

“Hm. You know, I like the way you talk. You’ve got such a way with words.~”

“ **2525)2(2(/(:,//!?// &/)/&/)/?/. SgsgsvzHSFSFAYSUETGEUWTWYWUWUWRWUSGSV !!!/, a sSHSGSV SHSGSGBVSHSJSHVS S SBSBSJSISYSHIWYWYUWWOWYWU**”

“What’s that?”

“ **Ghhg...GHGGGG…...GHGGAGGGGGGSHDHGGHGGGHHGG!!!!!”**

“‘A guy in orange killed your friend’...?”

“ **YYYYYYEYYDYDYDYYEYEYDYDYEHGGH** ”

Forzen’s brow furrowed empathetically. “Oh, how unfortunate. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“ **GGGGAFAFFSFSFSHHHHHHHHHHHHHH :(((((((“**

“Oh, babe, you don’t have to be scared. We aren’t so different from each other, after all. Just two outlaws in a lawless field. I’ll _never_ let something like that happen to you.”

Through his words, Forzen’s eyes deviated to the beast’s love meter, now three quarters full.

“ **VVSGGSHSHG :)))) GGGGGGGG :))))) VSCSCSBSBSVSVSBSBS <3”**

“Heh. You’re so beautiful, if you don’t mind me telling you. You have such a pretty… _lack_ of eyes, and that disregard for the laws of psychics really brings out your personality.”

“ **HOOSOSUEYEHSHAGGSHSHSGSH**!!!!”

“Hey, how about we carry on this conversation over dinner? I know a good burger joint up the street.”

“ **DHDGHSHSCSSVCSJSSVVSJSSVVSJSGSBSKSYSYSUIEHEVEGSISGAGABVVSBSBS SGSSGATAI 2? Exec >>.<.>..€<GSFSV SHSHJSSSHSB 0101029276392027282735!3?3,/, zchhdszhGSGSJSGSVSN”**

“You’d love to? Great! Let me just grab my coat over here.”

By that point, the enemy Forzen was flirting with wouldn't respond to any further advances, still and unmoving in place, like a dinosaur skeleton at a prestigious museum. With its love meter filled to the brim, Forzen seized the moment, rushing over and grabbing his chainsaw. There and then, without any further hesitation, he instantly sank the weapon’s jagged, sharp teeth into its side. It’s hisses dimmed down as he kept going, hacking it into two, four, six, eight - at least a _hundred_ individual, clean-cut pieces, with each quickly evaporating into the floor. Minutes later and safe with the knowledge that the godless thing was finally dead, he proudly heaved his blade to the side, leaning against it with his arm. The pink background around him now splattered in textureless remains faded out, delivering him back to reality.

“Tch. They make it _too_ easy.”

Hearing a beep come from the computer, Forzen wasted no time getting back to the very situation that’d landed him in peril in the first place. He hopped onto the desk, struggling to get both feet on the rigid office chair. Instead, the anime dream boy resorted to just standing on it, as his short stature left using the chair to reach the desk as intended out of the question. He hooked his phone up to the dated monitor, displaying a new window on the screen. The only colors the primitive program had to its name were black and blue. A digital map of the facility sprawled out before him. Arrowing through the files, though, something struck him as odd. He couldn’t find anything. This assumption was quickly done away with, as he’d found a map on the premises with a giant red exclamation mark slapped over the middle of it. Strangely, it didn’t seem to resemble a hallway, or a corridor, or a meeting room. Rather, the imperfect marks on the thing looked to be rough terrain. Eyebrow raised, he clicked on it, preemptively sipping away on a tiny teacup of black coffee as he waited for the details to load in.

He almost spat it out when he saw four, _four_ entire pings appear on the map.

“H-... _Four…_ _FOUR ENTITIES INFECTED?!_ ” Screamed Forzen, his sheer volume jostling the paperwork present on the desk. “B-but...But I cured the first one! How could….unless...no, it couldn’t be. I cut his arms off! That should’ve been enough. This must be a different group. It _has_ to be.”

Regrettably, as he hovered the cursor over one of the many dots, his fears were confirmed. Only one out of the group members had a cell phone on them at all, so, as a precaution, Forzen had previously taken the liberty of hacking into it while it went unused in order to obtain its ID. Having scrolled over a random dot, a GUI appeared next to it. 

Same ID.

A click of a button was all it took to disable the only means of contact to the outside world the group had. _At least then they wouldn’t make such a big deal out of it_ , he thought.

There was a weight to his footsteps as he swiveled off that chair, a sigh sleeping out of his mouth.

“Well, Just Gordon, I tried.”

His fingers wrapped around the handle of the chainsaw tensely.

“ _I really tried._ ”


End file.
